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LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 
























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































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“ On the goose's back sat a tiny figure ” 


Page 24 





LITTLE MISTRESS 

GOOD HOPE 

and OTHER FAIRY TALES 


By MARY IMLAY TAYLOR 

With Frontispiece in Color and Illustrations 
in the Text by JESSIE WILLCOX SMITH 


“Wee folk, good folk. 
Trooping all together; 
Green jacket, red cap. 
And gray cock’s feather.” 


CHICAGO ■ A. C. 

M cCLURG 

AND COMPANY • 

MDCCCCII 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Cowes Received 

OCT. 3 W? 

COPVRWWT ENTRY 

a t — 

CLASS G^XXo. No. 

X-1- °t b sT" 
COPY 3. 



Copyright 

A. C. McClurg & Co. 
1902 

Published September 27, 1902 


* • • » * • 


Dedicated to 

ITTLE SUZANNE 

by one of her admirers 








Contents 

Page 

Little Mistress. Good Hope 13 

Rob, The Peddler’s Boy 43 

The Abbot’s Trout 71 

The Madness of the Abbot of Buckfast 97 

Tommy the Bad 125 

Goody Greeneye and Her Ass 145 

Little Eleanor and Little Pepper 181 










LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 








ONG, long ago — let us try to remember 
exactly how long — two hundred and 
forty years at least, there lived a little 
girl in one of the loveliest of England’s 
southern counties, that was called then, as now, 
Devon, or Devonshire. She was just like other 
little girls — in many ways just like the children 
of to-day, only, perhaps, her cheeks were even rosier 
and her large eyes brighter, for she was a stout 
little country lass, a farmer’s daughter. Neither 
rich, nor great, nor very beautiful, and yet the 
heroine of a story, and quite a wonderful story, 
too, in its way, though, perhaps, it will lose a little 
in the telling; just as a very beautiful gem often 
loses a little in the setting, though it sparkles for 
more eyes than it did before the jeweller cut away 
13 



14 LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 

the outer portions of it, and polished it according 
to his fancy. This little Devonshire girl had lived 
ever since her birth in a long, low house, built of 
granite stones, rough hewn and roughly laid to- 
gether, too, with a hipped roof and a mighty chim- 
ney in the middle of the house, with a fireplace 
in the kitchen so large that a whole tree trunk 
could be laid in it for the fire; and there were 
great iron hooks in the chimney-back, where the 
meat was spitted for roasting, and where the huge 
iron kettle boiled. The floors of the house were of 
stone — sometimes strewn with rushes — but never 
covered by a carpet or a rug; and it was a very cold 
place, too, and the wind blew in at the windows and 
doors, and howled down the chimneys, and, in 
winter, the snow came in, in little flurries; for they 
have fearful snow-storms in the valley of the Dart, 
and wayfarers have been frozen out on that great 
plain that was in sight of the house, and was called 
Dartmoor. There were no cushioned chairs or 
comfortable lounges in this stone house in Devon, 
two hundred and forty years ago, but instead, the 
main pieces of furniture were high-backed wooden 
settles that could be drawn near the fire, and the 
backs kept off the draughts. The plates, too, that 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 


15 


they ate from were of pewter, and the food was put 
on the table in great wooden platters called 
trenchers ; and the table itself was only a long 
board, laid on trestles, with benches each side, in- 
stead of chairs. The chickens, too, and the dogs 
came in to pick up the crumbs that fell from the 
table ; and the people did not eat the same food that 
we do ; for all winter, from Martinmas, they had 
nothing but salted meat that had been stored away 
in their cellars with their cider ; for there were a great 
many apple orchards in Devon, and in the spring 
they blossomed white and pink with apple-blooms, 
and the honey-bees had a festival. 

This particular stone farmhouse had the letters 
T. T. cut in a long stone over the door, and the 
date 1525, which was to show that it had been 
built by one Thomas Tarkenwell, a franklin. It 
was when little Kathleen Tarkenwell was born 
already over a hundred years old, which we think 
very old, indeed, and was really old for England 
then. A great many Tarkenwells had lived in this 
house, but all were dead except our little lass, 
Kathleen, and her widowed mother, good Dame 
Agnes Tarkenwell. The family had once owned a 
large farm, a gift from the king to the first Tarken- 


1 6 LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 

well for some good deed that he had done, and 
there were wide fields, that had been sown with 
oats and barley, and there was an orchard ; but 
after Kathleen’s father died things did not go well 
with her mother. Crops failed — crops do very 
often — a blight fell on the orchard, and there was 
so much ill fortune that people wagged their heads, 
saying the “ hill folk ” had a grudge against the 
Tarken wells. The hill folk, as you will presently 
learn, were the fairies of Devon, but the peasants 
called them pixies instead of fairies, and were afraid 
of them ; for these little people were, by repute, very 
malicious, and played strange tricks on the sober 
folk, and often — so they said — stole into the 
houses and whipped babies out of their cradles, and 
left nothing behind but a gray goose quill. Then, 
there were derricks, too, the dwarfs, who were also 
mightily mischievous creatures, bobbing up quite 
unexpectedly, and doing harm enough for much 
larger people. Besides these elves, there were 
some fairy dogs, called “ wishhounds,” whole packs 
of them, that ran about on the moors and barked 
and howled in the twilight. So, Devon was as full 
as it could be of all sorts of strange creatures and 
stranger doings ; yet it was lovely for all that, for 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 1 7 

the banks of the river Dart were green, and feathery 
with ferns, and lovely with wild flowers, and the 
moors — rolling away, one softly rising slope behind 
another — were sometimes golden with the blossom- 
ing of the gorse; and away, in the distance, rose 
the twin peaks of Heytor, while, near at hand, 
those rolling uplands were skirted here and there 
with great cliffs of wonderful colored rocks, and the 
blue sea — like a sapphire — shimmered at their 
base. 

It was a lovely country, and Kathleen had been 
happy until she began to understand why her 
mother was so sad and thoughtful. The truth is 
they were very poor, and Dame Agnes found it hard 
to live ; and, in those times, there was a tax that 
was very hard upon the poor — it was called the 
chimney tax. People had to pay the government a 
certain sum of money for living in any house in 
England, and it was called “ hearth money,” or the 
“chimney tax,” and, considering how large the chim- 
neys really were, we will call it that. Now, the king 
appointed certain men — not always good men, I 
fear — to collect that money from every house and 
pay it into his treasury; but, because it was a hard 
tax on the poor, and not an easy one to gather, 


1 8 LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 

these officers of the king sold their places to very 
low, and often very wicked men, who made the 
people pay sometimes more than the law really re- 
quired, and never gave any one a moment to collect 
the money, but, if they did not get it at once, seized 
all the household goods and left the families without 
a bed to lie on, no matter how poor and wretched 
they were. There were a great many poor people 
then, too, for there had been fearful wars in England, 
and a great deal of suffering and sorrow, as there 
always must be, in the train of war. 

It was nearly time to gather this chimney tax in 
Devon, and poor Dame Tarkenwell had no money 
at all to pay it, only — out of all her labors — some 
food stored for herself and her child, and the cloth- 
ing that she had made from cloth of her own weav- 
ing. Moreover, she had been very poor since her 
husband’s death, and she had been foolish enough to 
borrow money from the tax-gatherer himself, promis- 
ing if she did not pay the debt to give him her prop- 
erty. Such a promise is called a mortgage, and the 
tax-gatherer was a hard man. So Kathleen’s mother 
knew that when he came, as he would in a few days, 
she and her little girl would be turned out of doors 
and have no roof to shelter them ; and Dame Agnes 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 


19 


wept a great deal; and Kathleen saw it and came to 
understand — with a dull pain and horror — that 
something dreadful was going to happen, and the 
child was sad, too. These two, mother and little 
girl, went about as usual, and ate their simple 
meals ; the woman worked her spinning-wheel and 
Kathleen fed the poultry ; but they were very mis- 
erable, and the child thought that the sun did not 
shine so brightly on Dartmoor as it used to do, 
and she wondered at the roses for blooming in the 
garden. 

One night, when they were eating their supper 
together, she saw her mother wipe away a tear, try- 
ing to hide it from her, and Kathleen began to feel 
as if she could not eat at all. 

“ Mother,” she said sadly, “ do other people have 
to pay chimney taxes, too ? ” 

“ Yes, child,” her mother answered, trying to speak 
bravely, “ we all do.” 

“And is it always hard?” asked the little girl; 
“ will they turn out the people at the castle, if they 
do not pay ? ” 

“ At Berry-Pomeroy ? ” exclaimed Dame Agnes, 
smiling in spite of herself. “ No, no, little lass; the 
people at the castle are great and rich, and they 


20 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 


have never had to borrow money from the tax- 
gatherer.” 

“ Then, why do they not help us, mother ? ” asked 
the child, wondering. 

Dame Agnes shook her head. “ Great folk for- 
get the poor, Kathie, ” she said ; “ perhaps they can’t 
help it. We must not judge our neighbors, the 
Bible says. Rich people very seldom help the poor 
in this world.” 

“ I would, if I had riches,” Kathie declared 
stoutly. 

“ Nay, child,” replied her mother, “ if you had the 
riches, you would lie on a soft bed and sleep so well 
that you would forget the poor man on his bed of 
straw.” 

And while she spoke, they heard — far off — the 
strangest, weirdest sound, like the baying of a thou- 
sand hounds at the full moon. 

“Hark!” cried the good dame, turning pale, 
“’tis the wishhounds, Kathleen. The pixies are 
abroad and it means something will happen — good 
or ill — erelong.” 

Kathleen’s eyes grew large, and she cast a strange 
look over her shoulder, and could not finish her 
bowl of bread and milk. The pixies, ah, why did 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 


21 


not the pixies help them ? She wondered, too, what 
the wishhounds looked like, that every one heard, 
but hardly any one had ever seen. She was a brave 
little girl, and she was not so much frightened, after 
all, and she thought she would dearly love to see a 
pixy, or a derrick, or a wishhound, for they must 
be wonderful creatures — good or evil — and very 
strange to see. That night, when Kathleen went 
to her little room, she peeped cautiously out of the 
window in hopes of catching a glimpse of a wish- 
hound; but no, she saw nothing — that is, nothing 
new. Really, she saw a beautiful scene : Dartmoor 
lay before her, rolling away in the moonlight, like 
the billows of the sea, and way off was the shadowy 
bracken at the edge of the forest, and behind all, 
those twin peaks. It was a country for fairies and 
happiness ; and Kathleen sighed. She knew that 
her mother was weeping and praying in the next 
room, and the child began to wonder if there was 
nothing at all that she could do to pay the chimney 
tax and the mortgage ; but she could think of noth- 
ing, and, at last, sobbed herself to sleep, a sad little 
girl, though there were so many happy ones in 
England who could have paid the whole sum twice 
over and never missed it. “ Bear ye one another’s 


22 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 


burdens,” says the Bible, but no one was willing to 
bear little Kathleen’s. 

She awoke next morning to begin all over again 
with the horror of it ; and it was only three days now 
before the tax-gatherer would turn them out of the 
house in which she had been born. She would 
have to lose her home, which she loved so dearly, 
and it is a hard and bitter thing indeed to lose a 
home, though none know how hard and cruel it is, 
who do not feel the ache and the pain of home- 
lessness way down in their hearts. Poor little Kath- 
leen, she could hardly eat any breakfast because her 
mother’s face was so sad. Dame Agnes had written 
for help to a rich uncle who lived in London; and 
that morning the post-boy came riding up to the 
door, with his mail-bags hanging across his saddle, 
and blowing his horn as he came. In those days, 
the postman came once a month and rode all the 
way from London on horseback, carrying his letters 
in great bags on the saddle ; and sometimes the 
robbers that infested the lonely places caught him 
on the way and took all his letters and money from 
him. But this morning he came along, as blithe as 
a bird, and blew a blast at Dame Tarkenwell’s gate ; 
and she ran out — poor woman — betwixt hope and 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 2J 

fear, and got the answer to her letter ; and Kathleen 
waited eagerly to hear it, for surely — thought the 
child — my uncle, being rich, will help us. But the 
uncle said no, and not kindly either, but with some 
abuse of poor dead Tom Tarkenwell, for leaving 
his niece so poor; and Dame Agnes had very red 
cheeks as she wiped away her tears, without tell- 
ing little Kathleen of the cruel words about her 
father, 

“ Be a brave lass, Kathie,” said the poor woman ; 
“ doubtless you and I can make a living some way, 
but the house — the dear, old house and all the fur- 
niture must go ; ” and she wept with all her heart. 

As for Kathleen, she crept out, very softly and 
slowly, into the garden — into a corner of it that 
was full of tall, nodding hollyhocks, white and pink 
and red, and where a climbing rose bloomed all 
summer, hanging on the branches of a dead apple 
tree. Here the child sat down, and, being all alone, 
as she thought, hid her face in her hands and cried 
her heart out. What would they do ? she thought ; 
be beggars on the roadside, as she had seen others ? 
She wondered if it could be those terrible wish- 
hounds that made all this trouble. And just at 
this moment she heard a voice close to her ear. 


24 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 


“ Kathleen, why do you cry when the roses are in 
bloom ? ” it asked. 

Kathleen started, much frightened, and looked 
about her, but saw nothing save the hollyhocks and 
the roses ; though she did notice that the hollyhocks 
were nodding in the strangest way, as if in a gale 
of wind, and there was no wind at all. 

“ Kathleen,” said the voice again, “ look this way, 
and you will see me under the rose-bush.” 

The child looked eagerly and saw — what do 
you think she saw ? A great, gray goose standing 
solemnly under the rose-bush, and, what was more 
amazing still, on the goose’s back sat a tiny figure, 
all in gray with a pointed cap, and there was a 
shimmering harness on the bird, and the pixy held 
the reins and a long whip in her hands. Kathleen 
was so much amazed that she forgot to be frightened, 
and rubbed her eyes and looked again; and this 
time she saw the face under the hood, a small face 
with sparkling eyes and a happy smile ; not a face 
to fear or distrust; indeed, a face so charming 
that the little girl smiled back through her tears. 

“Who are you?” she asked timidly, trying not 
to offend this strange creature. 

The pixy laughed and seemed to be thinking. 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 


2 5 


“ Well,” she said, “ I think you may call me 
Mistress Good Hope ; and now tell me, little mortal, 
why do you weep ? ” 

At this, poor Kathleen’s tears flowed afresh. 

“ Oh ! ” she exclaimed, “ do you pixies have to pay 
mortgages and chimney taxes ? ” 

The pixy laughed gayly. “ Nay,” she replied, 
“we slide down chimneys — when they’re not too 
sooty — but we do not pay a tax. Oh, no, but I 
have the special care of chimney taxes, and I stuck 
pins in some tax-gatherers only last week. So, you 
can’t pay your tax ? ” 

“ No,” answered Kathie sadly, “ and we must lose 
our home, too.” 

Mistress Good Hope reflected. “ This will never 
do,” she said. “ We must consult the King of the 
Pixies. Come, child, mount this other steed, and 
we ’ll go at once.” 

And to Kathleen’s great amazement, another 
goose, precisely like the fairy’s, all saddled and 
bridled, too, came waddling placidly up to her. 

“ Dear me,” cried the child. “ I never rode a 
goose before, never ! ” 

“ Come — come ! ” cried the pixy, impatiently ; 
“ there is not a moment to lose, if you want to 


26 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 


help your mother. The King of the Pixies is 
holding court, and if he chooses to help you, he 
can. But he never will if you dawdle under the 
hollyhocks and cry till your nose is red. That is 
not the way to succeed in this world, I can tell 
you, Mistress Tarkenwell ; opportunity only comes 
once, and if you do not seize it — success is lost.” 

As Mistress Good Hope uttered these sage words, 
the wild goose bowed low to Kathleen and spread 
its wings for her to mount ; and the little girl, 
anxious to help her mother, seated herself on the 
bird’s back, and immediately the two gray geese 
rose upward — like two clouds — with scarcely a 
motion of their great wings, and swept off through 
the air, — over the moor, and away ! At first, Kath- 
leen was a bit frightened, but there was so little 
movement, and her companion was so composed, 
that she began to forget everything in the enjoy- 
ment of this new and wonderful expedition. It 
was delightful; have you not often dreamed of 
flying, and longed to fly? So had Kathleen, and 
here she was really and truly skimming through 
the air without the trouble of even using a pair of 
wings, but seated comfortably on the back of a wild 
goose, who was — by the way — uncommonly tame. 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 27 

Upward and onward the great birds swept, like 
twin ships sailing in that upper deep, and the won- 
dering little mortal, clasping her arms about the 
goose’s neck, looked down, down, at the great moor 
where she had played so often. She saw the breeze 
rippling over the blooming gorse, and she passed 
right over the tops of the tallest trees, and the sheep 
and cattle looked the size of kittens and mice. 
Strange to say, too, no one seemed to notice Mis- 
tress Good Hope and her companion ; they passed 
close over the farmhouse roofs and they dipped low 
beside the great castle, Berry-Pomeroy, but no one 
saw them, or even seemed to look in their direction; 
and presently they were travelling lower among 
the tree-tops of the forest, and they heard the 
birds singing close to them among the branches. 
Kathleen gave a cry of delight. 

“ ’T is lovely ! ” she said, clasping her hands ; 
“ oh, thank you, Mistress Good Hope, for the 
pleasure.” 

The pixy smiled and nodded. “ It is pleasant,” 
she admitted, “ but we think it finer to ride on a 
moonbeam; but that no mortal can do. Yonder, 
by the way, is the Abbot’s Pool,” she added, pointing 
downward, “where the wishhounds always drink. 


28 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 


There are wonderfully fine trout there. This is why 
it was called the Abbot’s Pool : the old fellow used 
to catch the fish — when we let him ; but, dear me, 
there are such a number of stories about the times 
when we did not let him, and ran off with his bait, 
and the little brown jug he always took with him. 
That, to be sure, was full of horrible stuff that the 
derricks used to light the beacon fire with ; it burned 
tremendously, and the smell of it made some of 
the derricks act very queerly, — so queerly, indeed, 
that the King of the Derricks had to have five of 
them nailed up in a keg for a week, as a punish- 
ment, you know.” 

“ Dear me, were you alive as long ago as that ? ” 
asked Kathleen, quite forgetful of her manners. 
“ I know the stories of the abbot and his pool are 
very old. How old are you ? ” 

The pixy colored angrily. “ My dear,” she said, 
“ you should never ask a woman’s age — it ’s 
extremely ill bred.” 

Kathleen, overcome with embarrassment, begged 
her pardon a thousand times, and to change the 
subject, said she wished that her mother could have 
some of the fish. 

“ That is easily done,” replied the pixy, quite 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 29 

herself again ; and she whistled three times, through 
a daffodil bud, and behold, there was another pixy- 
clambering up on the top of a tall birch tree, all 
dressed in green, and so much like the leaves that 
Kathleen could scarcely believe her eyes. 

“ Catch some trout immediately, little Good 
Deeds, and take them to the door of Dame Tarken- 
well,” ordered Mistress Good Hope ; and the little 
green elf bowed and slid down the tree trunk, like a 
spider down its web. 

“ How pleased mother will be,” thought Kathleen, 
and then sighed ; “ poor mother, she is so sad ! ” 

The thought made the child sad, too, and they 
were silent as they swept through the forest; only 
she could not help looking down with pleasure at 
the wonderful bracken of ferns that made every 
glade in the woods beautiful with their waving 
fronds, and she heard, too, the music of hundreds of 
songsters. What a ride it was! but at last it 
came to an end, and the wild geese flew down, 
down into a lovely dell, right in the heart of the 
greenwood, locked in by tall and beautiful trees, 
and the ground covered with moss and carpeted 
with primroses. Here the two travellers alighted, 
and the pixy looked gravely at her companion. 


30 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 


“You certainly are not in court dress,” she said, 
with a sigh; “but then, ’t is a case of necessity. 
Follow me, mortal, and do as I do.” 

While she was speaking, she had thrown aside 
her gray mantle, and now appeared in a wonderful 
court gown of rose leaves and petals, spangled with 
dew-drops, and looked so lovely that Kathleen 
glanced shyly down at her own homespun frock 
and her coarse pinner — in those days they called 
an apron a “ pinner.” But she was a sensible child 
and did not fret for better clothes than her mother 
could give her, and so she followed the pixy with 
wondering eyes, into the court of the “ hill folk.” 
They came first to a tall hedge of ferns, that nodded 
their beautiful plumes in the air, and here they were 
met by a row of pixies, walking two and two, dressed 
in the pink petals of roses and blowing little trumpets 
of mother-of-pearl ; and these little creatures led the 
way through the ferns to a wide open space that 
was full of beautiful elves, all robed in the petals of 
flowers, and all standing in a semi-circle about a 
throne that was made entirely of congealed dew- 
drops. These were firm enough to hold the King of 
the Fairies, and yet as clear and sparkling as when 
they were first gathered in the morning by his 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 3 1 

attendants. And on this marvellous throne, quite 
the most marvellous that monarch ever possessed, 
sat the charming little person who was called King 
of Pixyland, and he was robed — not in ermine or 
velvet, or jewels or lace — nay, in the petals of a lily 
of the field, more beautiful than the robes worn by 
Solomon in all his glory, and wearing on his head 
a crown of sunshine, while his sceptre was a ray of 
the full moon. He was receiving petitions from his 
subjects, and smiled graciously upon Mistress Good 
Hope and her companion, although Kathleen felt 
very big and very awkward, indeed, among these 
sprites, and it is certain that she would never have 
found her tongue at all; so it was well that Mistress 
Good Hope told the whole sad story for her, and 
told it well. His Majesty looked sympathetic, but, 
at first, shook his head. 

“You know very well, Good Hope,” he said, “that 
we never soil our fingers with anything so sordid 
and dirty as money, and she cannot pay the chimney 
tax with sunshine.” 

“ Ah, do not turn me away,” cried poor Kathleen, 
in distress after hoping so much. “Surely, your 
Majesty will help my poor mother, since her rich 
uncle will not ! ” 


32 LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 

“ Ah, indeed,” said the king, “ will he not ? And 
who, pray, is your mother’s uncle, and where does 
he live?” 

“ He ’s an alderman in London, sire,” replied 
Kathie, “ and his name is Solomon Moneybags.” 

“ Go you, quickly, Special Torment,” said the 
king, to one of his attendants, “ and give that rich 
uncle the gout in his toes ; and do you, Mischief, 
paint his nose red and swell it, when he drinks his 
sack.” 

Having thus disposed of old Moneybags, his 
Majesty fell into deep thought and the whole court 
was silent, full of expectation. At last, the king 
spoke again. 

“ Go, Mistress Good Hope,” he said, “ and take 
this poor child to the King of the Derricks, he can 
settle it for her ; and say to him, that I will help 
him next time he sends for me, if he will do this 
good turn. Take with you the golden precepts — 
wrapped in vapor — and, if all goes well, give them 
to this mortal. There ’s no time to lose, for my 
messengers report that the tax-collector is on the 
way now, and has only been delayed by the neces- 
sity of picking off the burs that my people keep 
sticking into him. Therefore, consider yourselves 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 33 

dismissed,” and he waved his sceptre, adding in a 
stern tone, “ shed no more tears, mortal, as you have 
already nearly drowned two infant pixies, and you 
can see that — if you continue to weep here — the 
whole court will have to take to boats ; it ’s a per- 
fect deluge! So please be off at once!” 

Thus sternly dismissed, Good Hope and Kathleen 
mounted their wild geese in hot haste and rode and 
rode — over forest and moor — toward the sea. 

“ Whither do we go now?” cried Kathie, a little 
frightened, for they had left behind them the river 
Dart and Dartmoor and were speeding south south- 
east, at a terrible rate so that everything was blurred 
to her eyes. 

“ We are going to Berryhead,” replied the pixy. 
“ The derricks are there just now, keeping the Pirate 
Cave.” 

“Oh, surely you don’t mean to go near the 
pirates?” cried Kathleen, breathless with fear, for 
the pirates were very wicked people and came only 
too often to Devon in those days. 

“Pshaw, foolish child ! ” retorted Good Hope, “ of 
course not; and if we did, they would not see us, for 
we are invisible.” 

Kathleen pinched herself hard. “ How can we 
3 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 


34 

be? ” she said, “ when I ’m just as much alive as I 
was.” 

The pixy laughed. “ You are invisible because 
of me,” said she ; “ but look, there is Berryhead, 
where many, many years ago a people called the 
Romans landed and took possession of this part of 
the country; ” and as she spoke she pointed out a 
bold headland jutting out into the beautiful blue 
sea. 

It was a wild spot ; great crags of reddish stone 
loomed up, and the red sands stretched out where 
the tide was rising, wave after wave, crested with 
foam and dancing in the sunlight, and away from 
the shore the turf was as green as an emerald. 
Kathleen had never been so far from home before, 
and she was delighted when the geese flew lower 
and lower ; but she did not feel so safe when they 
began to go out over the water itself and approached 
two wonderful rocks that loomed out of the sea. 

“ These are called the Parson and the Clerk,” 
said the pixy, “ and here I must blow the trumpet,” 
and as she spoke, she alighted on the crag, and, 
picking up a sea-shell, blew three shrill blasts. 

The signal was immediately answered from the 
cliffs of Berryhead, and the pixy directed the geese 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 35 

to fly over and alight there, at the mouth of the 
cavern. A good deal frightened, but ashamed to 
confess it, Kathleen dismounted with her guide, and 
the two entered the cave which was lighted by sea- 
anemones, hung along the vaulted roof. They 
passed through a long winding gallery, beautiful 
with hanging pieces of rock of glorious colors, and 
in the centre of the cave they found a great room 
filled with queer little men, all dressed in red from 
top to toe, and each wearing a cock’s feather in his 
cap. But what amazed Kathleen most was the cave 
itself, for all sides of it were lined with bags and 
bags of gold ; broad gold pieces, Spanish pistoles, 
livres of Tours, and nuggets from the mines of 
Africa and Peru ; and on top of the largest heap sat 
the King of the Derricks, cross-legged, tasting a 
dried tobacco leaf and making horrible faces. 

“ Dear me,” he remarked, “ why do these strange 
mortals load their ships with such fearful weeds ? 
This, they tell me, comes from the Virginia Colony 
that they ’re all so wild over. ’T is not fit for a 
decent pirate ; no wonder the ship went down ! 
Listen to me, derricks : never bring another bit of 
that horrible weed into my caverns, on pain of being 
made mortals ! ” 


36 LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 

As he spoke, Mistress Good Hope and Kathleen 
were ushered in, and he listened to their petition 
with some impatience, all the while wiping his 
tongue with a piece of seaweed to take away the 
taste of tobacco. 

“ So,” he said, when Good Hope had finished 
speaking, “ so you want money to pay the tax and 
the mortgage ! Look at this money ; here is a les- 
son for mortals. They all want it ; they work for 
it, they cheat for it, they steal for it, and they die 
for it — and a precious lot of good it does them. 
Now, this was all stolen ; a lot of pirates brought it 
here and hid it — and what happened ? Why, bless 
your hearts, after they had been stealing it and hid- 
ing it for twenty years, their ship went to the bot- 
tom, with all on board, out there by the Parson and 
Clerk, and here is the gold — collecting dirt and 
rust, and a perfect nuisance to us ; ” he waved his 
hand airily. “We derricks guard it — out of pure 
compassion — to keep these wretched mortals from 
cutting each other’s throats for it, and yet the King 
of the Pixies is foolish enough to want to give 
some of it to a poor, stupid child like that one 
with you.” 

Poor Kathleen began to lose all hope of helping 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 37 

her mother, on hearing this bitter speech, and she 
fell on her knees in the greatest distress. 

“ If it please your Majesty,” she cried, “only pay 
the chimney tax for my mother, and I will bless 
you forever.” 

The king was really very good hearted — kings 
often are, when they take off their crowns — and 
at the sight of the child’s grief, wiped his eyes hastily 
with a blade of grass. 

“ Dear, dear,” he said, “ that tobacco has given 
me the grippe ; ” then he looked sharply at a chest 
in the corner. “Jake and Jeffrey,” he said, “go 
harness the wishhounds — six of them — and put 
that chest of gold on the sledge. Let them take it 
to this mortal’s home and pay that creature the tax- 
gatherer, and see that he falls in a mud puddle 
afterwards.” 

Kathleen began to pour out her gratitude, for she 
was indeed transported with joy, but he held up his 
hand. 

“ No thanks,” he said sharply ; “ I have given you 
a great fortune, but it is only the seed of discord to 
scatter in the world ; for money, my dear child, is the 
current coin of the evil one, and I expect it will 
plunge you into misery.” 


38 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 


At this little Good Hope unrolled her bundle of 
vapor and placed three beautiful flowers on Kathie’s 
bosom. 

“ Nay,” she said gently, “the King of the Pixies 
has given her a talisman : if only she never allows 
these blossoms to fade, she will be ever happy and 
fortunate ; for the white blossom is Honesty, the 
golden one Content, and the red one the Thank- 
ful Heart, and if she keeps these fresh upon her 
bosom, she will be safe and well to the end of her 
life.” 

Kathleen was so overcome with all these kind- 
nesses that she could only thank the givers with tear- 
ful eyes, and she followed the pixy out to the open 
plain, at the other side of the cliffs, where she saw 
the wishhounds that she had feared so much ; tall, 
graceful, beautiful creatures they were, too, harnessed 
to a wonderful sledge of sea-shells, on which was 
the chest of uncounted treasure. Swiftly she mounted 
her goose and away they flew — just off the ground 
so as to keep near the wishhounds, who sped fleetly 
as winged creatures, over the moors. So happy was 
the child that the journey seemed short indeed, and 
she was surprised to see her own dear home in front 
of her, before she knew she was so near it. And 


LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE 


39 


there, sure enough, was the tax-collector; and her 
mother, with a white face and tearful eyes, had just 
told him that she could not pay, and that her little 
girl had vanished, when Kathleen came running up 
with her hands full of broad gold pieces to pay the 
debts. Oh, what thankfulness there was, and what 
wonder! The tax-gatherer was driven off by the 
derricks and the pixies, who managed to trip him 
up in a huge mud-puddle, so that he went on in a 
very ill humor, while Kathleen and her mother 
looked at the wonderful chest that now stood in the 
middle of the kitchen. 

It was a fortune, so that there was never any 
more suffering or worry for money ; nor was there 
any wrong-doing with the fairy gift, for Kathleen 
never allowed the three wonderful flowers to fade, 
but kept them fresh on her heart as long as she 
lived ; and she lived to be a very old woman, and 
a very wise and good one. 






ROB, THE PEDDLER'S BOY 









ARE indeed were the merry times 
when King Charles the Second ruled 
in England, even though he was called 
the Merry Monarch. There was, in- 
stead, a great deal of suffering and misery among 
the poorer classes in England, in those days, though 
some people are always saying that the old times 
everywhere were better than the new ; but of that I, 
for one, am not so sure. Certainly, the old city of 
London, for its size, was quite as full of wickedness, 
and dirt, and misery, as London is to-day. But, 
dear me, what a different London ! Now it is one of 
the greatest cities of the world and full of beautiful 
buildings, fine houses, great shops; but, in those old 
43 



44 


ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 


times, it was a small town with narrow, crooked, 
unpaved streets, thickly crowded with houses that 
leaned up against each other, and toppled over at 
each other, and thrust out their upper stories almost 
across the streets. There were no sidewalks, only 
posts driven into the mud on each side, and the 
foot passengers must keep within these, while the 
great emblazoned coaches, carts, sedan chairs, and 
wheel-barrows trundled and rumbled through the 
filth in the centre, splashing it freely upon the peo- 
ple. Thus it came to be considered so great a 
privilege to get on the inside, next the houses, that 
there were often street brawls about “ taking the 
wall,” as they called it ; and sometimes people were 
pelted with vegetables from the wheel-barrows, and 
mud from the kennel, as they named the great gut- 
ter in the middle of the street. There were no 
street lamps then, either, and it was considered a 
great thing when a man, called Edward Heming, 
proposed to light London, on moonless nights, from 
Michaelmas to Lady Day, by hanging a lantern on 
every tenth door, from six o’clock until twelve. 
There were more pick-pockets and vagabonds, too, 
then than now, and it was very dangerous to walk 
in the streets, even after Mr. Heming hung up his 


ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 


45 


little lanterns on every tenth door, — a tiny yellow 
flicker of a candle in the darkness of the night. 
The town was full of beggars, too, and thieves, and 
evil-minded persons, and there were very few people 
to heed or care for the wretched little children who 
played, half naked, in the mud, while the king and 
the great people drove by in wonderful gilt coaches 
that were shaped vastly like apple-pies,- — very broad 
and flat on top, and narrow at the bottom, with 
glass sides and wonderful colors, and gold and 
silver on the outside. They were drawn usually 
by gray Flanders mares, with outriders in the gayest 
of gay liveries. 

There was only one bridge over the river Thames 
then, too; quite a strange bridge, with rows of houses 
on each side of it, and only a narrow road between 
for the coaches and people to pass over; and yon- 
der was the great gloomy Tower of London, where 
prisoners of state were shut up. 

In this strange old city of London, in a misera- 
ble old house on the Strand, there lived a little lad 
called Rob, the peddler’s boy. He had no other 
name, and scarcely knew that it was odd for a little 
boy to have only one short name. He was about 
twelve years old, and small for his age ; a thin, ill- 


46 ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 

used child, with a pinched little face and sad dark 
eyes; and his clothes — the few he had — were so 
faded and ragged that you could not possibly have 
told what they looked like when they were new. 
As for shoes and stockings, he remembered none, 
and he was so neglected that his hair — which was 
a pretty auburn color — was often tangled and un- 
combed, unless he remembered to comb it, which, I 
fear, was not very often, for poor Rob had a hard life 
— the life of a street beggar. He was beaten when 
he failed to bring money home, and beaten when he 
brought it, so that it made no difference, a beating 
and a crust were his daily portion. For Rob had 
for a master a terrible old man, a peddler by trade, 
a miser, and, I fear, a thief. The boy did not know 
how he came to be in this old man’s clutches, or 
what relation he was to him. He thought he was 
his grandfather; but then it was only a dim idea, 
after all, for when he came to consider the matter, he 
did not know whether he was or not ; no one ever 
told him so, least of all old Jacob Cheezer, who had 
few words for him and many blows. He was a little, 
thin, old man, with stooping shoulders and such a 
dark face that Rob thought it seemed to absorb all 
the light in the room and make it dingy, even at 


ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 


47 


noonday ; and he had such cruel little eyes, keen and 
restless, and able to see — so the boy thought — as 
well out of the back of his head as out of the front ; 
and his hands were thin and the fingers like the 
talons of a bird of prey, fierce, and strong, and keen- 
pointed ; and though he was so small he had the 
strength of two men. Old Cheezer wore clothes 
almost as shabby as Rob’s: a faded, weather-worn 
green coat, with full petticoated skirts — a fashion 
they had then — and the sleeves came only to the 
elbow, so as to show the ruffled shirt sleeve below ; 
and old Jacobs full black trousers, tied at the knees 
with faded ribbons, were patched with almost as 
many colors as Joseph’s coat, in the Bible, and 
his long waistcoat was flowered like an old calico 
spread. 

This strange couple lived in the most rickety old 
shanty, two stories high ; the upper story hanging 
out over the lower one, as they often did then. It 
stood with its back toward the Thames and its face 
toward the road, and was one of the many old rook- 
eries. There were some nice houses there, too, with 
neat gardens on the river bank, but here and there 
were just such tumble-down shanties as that of old 
Jacob. It stood near to the great Maypole, set up 


48 ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 

by the Duke of York, the king’s brother, to cele- 
brate the Restoration of the royal family to Eng- 
land. 

There was a garden — or rather there had been 
one, now it was only a plot of ground — behind 
Cheezer’s house, and it was walled in by a high 
brick wall; a strange thing, too, when the house was 
so wretched, but old Jacob kept that wall repaired, 
and you could not see into it, even from the river, 
while his own window shutters were all nailed up 
on that side — and he had a very good reason for 
that, as you shall hear. His house, too, was not 
near the others, and no one entered it but himself 
and the boy, Rob ; indeed, if any one even came to 
the door, old Jacob drove him away with abuse. He 
had a slit in the floor of the room that overhung 
the door, and through this he could not only see 
who stopped there, but he could throw stones down 
upon them. So it was only a very bold person who 
came twice to Cheezer’s door; in fact, the people in 
the neighborhood thought him crazy and left him 
alone. 

Inside the house it was quite as dismal as it was 
outside. There was no furniture except in Cheezer’s 
room ; he had a bed, a chair, and an old chest, but 


ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 


49 


Rob lay upon straw on the kitchen floor and he 
ate his meals — what there was of them — with his 
fingers, off an old tin plate on the hearth, and was 
happiest when he could eat out of doors, beyond 
the old man’s reach. Every morning — rain or 
shine — Rob went out to beg in London and was 
pushed and knocked about, occasionally getting a few 
coins in his cap but more often a kick or a blow, for 
no one was very mindful of a beggar lad. He begged 
here and he begged there ; sometimes in busy Fleet 
Street, sometimes in front of the great Cathedral of 
St. Paul, and sometimes even at the gate of White- 
hall, the king’s palace ; and when he came home 
empty handed he was beaten almost to death. That 
was the child’s life, begging, and beating, and starv- 
ing, day in and day out ; it was not unlike the lives of 
many other little children in this great world of ours 
— not only in those days, but now. 

But there was one thing in old Jacob’s garden 
that interested Rob : every night, when he lay half 
starved and sore on his straw, he heard Cheezer 
creeping out into the garden, closing the door 
softly behind him, and once, when the boy stirred, 
the man heard him, and came back to beat him 
anew, and tell him, that if he dared so much as to 
4 


50 


ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 


peep into the garden at night, he would put out his 
eyes. As he was quite wicked enough to do it, 
poor Rob lay trembling all the rest of the night. 
But, after all, he was a boy, and we grow used to 
any danger that is familiar, and Rob grew used to 
this, and he grew also very curious. What did the 
old man do in that garden ? He was gone a long, 
long time, and he went every night. Rob racked 
his active young brains for an answer, but he got 
none, unless — perhaps old Jacob was dealing with 
some witch or fairy! It must be a very wicked 
fairy, Rob reflected ; but even then — a fairy ! 
Well, it was more than flesh and blood could with- 
stand, and next time old Jacob went out and 
shut the door, Rob crept softly off his straw and 
peeped through the keyhole, the only opening, be- 
cause, as I have said, every window on the garden 
was boarded up. It was a moonlight night, and 
Rob saw the bare, dreary-looking garden, with its 
high brick wall, as clearly as at noonday. Nothing 
grew there but weeds and one old gnarled pear tree 
that had never borne even a blossom in Rob’s 
remembrance. Breathless with fright and excite- 
ment, the boy peeped and peeped, and he saw a 
strange thing. Old Jacob walked all around the 


ROB, THE PEDDLER r S BOY 51 

garden three times, peering into every corner, and 
then he went to the old pear tree and knelt at its 
roots, as if he meant to say his prayers. This 
greatly surprised and frightened Rob, as he had 
never known Jacob to pray, and he made sure that 
the dreadful old man must be going to die. But 
Cheezer did not die; nor did he pray; he only — 
to all appearances — took up a lump of the solid 
earth, and reaching down into the hole beneath it, 
pulled up a bag and looked into it; then he put 
something into the bag, replaced it, put the lump of 
earth back again, went around the garden three 
times, and started for the door. You can imagine 
just how Rob scampered back to his straw and pre- 
tended to be asleep when the old man came in. 
Whether Jacob suspected him or not, Rob did not 
know, but he came to the spot where the boy lay, 
and peered at him sharply, and then hobbled off 
upstairs while the child trembled with fright. 

But curiosity had got the better of Rob, and he 
only waited his opportunity now ; it came the 
very next day, when he returned from a begging ex- 
pedition with better luck than usual, and brought 
old Cheezer nearly a guinea in small coins. The 
peddler grabbed it greedily, searched the boy’s 


52 


ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 


pockets, as usual, and finding no more, dismissed 
him with a kick, and immediately put on his shabby 
old hat and went out. This was so unusual that 
Rob could hardly believe it, but fastened the 
door after him, as he always did when he was to 
stay alone in the house, and then — and then ! He 
flew through the house and out into the garden ; 
now was his chance to fathom the mystery. Poor 
boy, poor little Rob, he had no idea of what it would 
lead to. He ran straight to the spot where he had 
seen Cheezer kneel, and dropped on his own knees ; 
but having proceeded so far he was at a loss, for he 
saw no hole in the earth ; no, nor any sign of one. 
But he was not a boy to be easily fooled, and he 
began to feel of the ground very carefully, all over 
the space at that side of the pear tree, but without 
success; and he was afraid, too, that old Jacob would 
return and, if he did not find him at the door to let 
him in, would suspect that he had been in the 
garden, and then what would happen ? Rob shud- 
dered, and was just on the point of giving up the 
search, when his busy fingers suddenly felt some- 
thing hard in the soft earth, — hard and round. He 
had hold of it, in an instant : it was an iron ring, 
and it was fastened in the ground, for it would 


ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 


53 


not move, and when he pulled it, the earth began to 
move. Ah, now the boy understood, and with all 
his might and main he pulled and hauled at that 
ring, and lo, up came an iron lid covered with earth, 
and beneath was a square hole, large enough and 
deep enough to hold Rob himself, if it had not been 
already nearly half full of bags that bulged out, 
filled with something. Trembling with excitement 
and fear of Jacob’s return, the boy thrust his hand 
into the topmost bag and drew forth a handful of 
money. Yes, money; some of it the money that 
he had begged himself, but much more of it money 
that old Cheezer had obtained in many, many ways. 
Rob knew that all the bags were full and bulging 
with gold, and that there must be a great deal there ; 
but before he could look any farther he heard Jacob 
at the front door. In the greatest fright he put back 
the lid, scratched the earth over the crevices, and 
fled into the house, barring the back door before he 
opened the front. He was dreadfully afraid that 
Jacob would see the dirt on his hands and suspect, 
but for some reason the old man only noticed him 
by a kick, and went in and began to cook a fat 
chicken that he had bought with some of Rob’s 
money. It smelled very nice while it was cooking, 


54 ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 

and the boy was very hungry ; but he only got the 
bones, for old Cheezer ate enormously, and one 
chicken was nothing to him if he had fasted since 
breakfast. So Rob saw him eat it greedily, his 
little eyes glittering as he smacked his lips, and 
then he threw the bones to the boy with a piece of 
stale bread, bidding him eat and go to bed at once, 
as he was going to be busy and wanted no brats 
about. So, still very hungry, after his bones and 
dry bread, Rob crept into his straw and pretended 
to go to sleep, all the while watching the peddler as 
sharply as he dared. Jacob waited until he thought 
the child was asleep, and then he crept out into 
the garden, went three times around it, and solemnly 
approached his treasure; but there he stopped short 
and stared, for on top of the hidden lid he saw a 
cock’s feather. A harmless thing, certainly, but 
how did it come there? Jacob could not imagine; 
he scratched his head and stared at it, and it was a 
long time before he lifted the lid and looked greed- 
ily at his money-bags; for Jacob was a miser, and 
he loved his money better than his life. He did 
not discover that Rob had been there before 
him, and after a while he went in and to bed, and 
dreamed that every coin in his bags had turned 


ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 55 

into three coins, and that he was the richest man 
in London. 

But Jacob was destined to trouble, and the next 
night he found a cock’s feather, and then again the 
third night, a cock’s feather. What did it mean? 
There were no cocks, or hens either, except in 
Jacob’s stomach, and as he could not account for 
the feathers, he began to suspect Rob, though why 
Rob should put cocks’ feathers there, he could not 
imagine. However, he resolved to know why ; and 
so, the next day he hid himself to watch, and Rob 
thought he had gone out ; indeed, the cunning old 
fellow did pretend to go out, and unluckily it came 
into the boy’s head to have another peep at all that 
gold. Out he ran into the garden, a poor, little, 
ragged figure, enough to move any one to pity in- 
stead of anger, and he knelt down and felt for the 
ring and found it, and tugged and tugged until the 
lid came off ; and he was just bending down to peep 
at the bags, when a hand grabbed him at the nape 
of the neck, and he looked up into the ugly face 
of old Cheezer, terrible in its anger, for the miser 
was beside himself with rage. 

“ So, so ! ” he said, “ so, I have found my cock’s 
feather, and now I will put out your eyes ! ” 


56 


ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 


Poor Rob fell to entreating him to spare his eyes. 

“ Beat me, starve me ! ” cried the boy, trembling 
in an agony of fear, for he knew that Jacob was 
quite wicked enough to execute his threat ; “ do 
anything you please to me but that — oh, spare 
my eyes ! Let me see still ! ” 

“ See to steal, you rogue ! ” cried old Cheezer, 
fiercely. “ Not I — I ’ll either kill you, or put out 
your eyes. Which do you choose ? you worthless, 
lazy, thieving rogue, you ! ” 

Rob choked back his sobs ; he knew that they 
were useless, and for one terrible moment he was 
in doubt. Life even to him was sweet; but eternal 
darkness — never to see the sky, or the earth, or 
other people ! 

“ Kill me,” said the boy, struggling to be quiet, to 
die like a brave child. 

Old Cheezer chuckled fiercely, gloating over the 
child’s misery, and he stood thinking, too ; for, after 
all, killing was quite an awkward business. Some 
one might miss the child, might suspect. Then, all 
at once, he hit upon a plan. 

“You were eager to get into this hole, you rogue,” 
he cried, with wicked glee, “and stay in it you shall, 
until you die.” 


ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 57 

“ You do not mean to bury me alive ? ” cried Rob, 
in horror; “you can’t mean that! ” 

“You shall see, you thief, you shall see ! ” shrieked 
the wretched miser, dragging the boy to the house, 
where he bound him hand and foot. Then he took 
him and thrust him deep into the hole with his 
money bags and began to shovel the dirt in on top 
of him. Rob set his teeth and tried to bear it ; he 
had chosen death and he was not a cowardly boy ; 
he tried to be brave and resolute, but it was very 
horrible. The old wretch was gloating over his 
misery all the while, and piling in the cool, damp 
earth, until it was up to Rob’s neck. 

“ Spare me, oh, spare me ! ” sobbed the boy, 
breaking down ; “ I do not want to die so.” 

“Will you have your eyes out?” jeered the 
wicked man. 

“ No,” Rob replied, with quivering lips, “never ! ” 

Jacob rested on his spade and stared at the boy 
maliciously. 

“ Do you feel like stealing now ? ” he asked 
tauntingly. 

“ I did not mean to steal,” cried Rob, indignant 

“Oh, no!” mocked Jacob Cheezer, “of course 
not Well, I ’ll leave you now for a bit to think 


58 ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 

about it. You’ll keep, I’ll wager, and slow dying 
will give you time to choose about your eyes,” and 
with this the hateful old creature walked calmly off 
and, slamming the house door, left the poor boy tied 
hand and foot and buried to his neck. 

The hours that followed were hours of torture to 
poor Rob. He could not move; the damp, heavy 
earth pressed down upon him like lead, growing 
heavier and tighter every moment, and the sun 
shone in his eyes while the ants began to crawl over 
his face, and he felt as if he would die. And the 
horror of it! for the boy knew how wicked the 
wretched miser was, and that he could hope for no 
mercy. Ah, how he wished that he had not been 
so curious, and so eager to meddle with another’s 
business. Rob repented of his curiosity as deeply 
as a great many other people have repented of 
theirs, when it was too late. He winked back the 
tears, for was he not a boy, and he would not cry 
like a girl ; but it was dreadful to die thus ! The 
minutes seemed like hours, the hours like days, and 
still no help. The time passed, however, and the 
sun set, and once, only, old Cheezer looked out at 
him and jeered. Night was coming and Rob had 
not tasted a morsel since morning, not even a drop 


ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 


59 


of water had passed his lips. The boy was used to 
hunger, but thirst was terrible, and he began to ache 
all over, so that every second was torture : and oh, 
the chill of it ! it was like a bed of ice ; and how 
dark it grew ! a cloudy night and black as pitch. 

The child never knew how those hours passed ; 
he tried to pray, but I am afraid no one had taught 
him howto say his prayers, and he was so frightened 
that he could scarcely have remembered, if he had 
been taught. So he stayed there all night long, 
and saw the dark sky brighten and brighten with 
the dawn, and grow light at last, and then pink and 
gold when the sun rose. At this time, old Cheezer 
came to the door and asked him if he wanted his 
eyes put out. 

“ No,” said Rob, faintly, for he could not en- 
dure much more; “but only give me a cup of 
water.” 

“ Thieves must thirst ! ” mocked the old man, and 
slammed the door, and Rob knew that he was going 
off for the day and there was no hope. 

Poor child, the end of his misery was not far off, 
for he could not bear it. The scene — though it 
was a bright morning — began to darken and waver, 
in the strangest fashion, and then he knew nothing 


6o 


ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 


more, for he had fainted away, something he had 
never done in all his life before. 

It must have been a long while afterwards that 
Rob came slowly to himself, and then he did not 
know what had happened, for he felt neither cold 
nor hunger, but was lying on a soft warm spot, with 
a warm breeze blowing gently in his face, and he 
heard voices, strange, squeaky little voices, all about 
him. Not knowing where he was, and remember- 
ing suddenly the horror of that burial alive, Rob 
began to think that he had died and come to life in 
another world; very cautiously he opened his eyes 
a little bit and peeped through the lashes and 
saw — well, he saw a marvellous sight. He seemed 
to be in the depths of a wooded dell, shadowed by 
great trees, and lying in a bracken of ferns, while 
around him were strange little men, all clad in green 
with pointed caps, each cap ornamented with a cock’s 
feather; and one, evidently the most important of all, 
was seated on a huge toadstool. Rob knew that 
this one was a king, because he wore a crown and 
frowned prodigiously if any one even dared to con- 
tradict him. Rob did not know at first that these 
were the famous derricks, the dwarfs of Devon, but 
to his astonishment he heard one of them telling the 


ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 6 1 

king all about himself in a very squeaky voice. The 
derrick described Rob’s life from day to day so per- 
fectly that the boy pinched himself to be sure that 
he was not dreaming, and the dwarf told how he 
and another derrick had put a cock’s feather on old 
Jacob’s money-hole every night to torment him; 
then came the description of Jacob beating Rob and 
burying him alive, and the boy listened to this 
eagerly, to find out how he had escaped. 

“ We dug him out, your Majesty,'” said the derrick. 
“ It was very hard work, too, for he ’s an uncom- 
monly heavy boy.” 

“ I don’t see how he can be,” interrupted the 
king sharply. “ He ’s a bag of bones and nothing 
more. You always make a fuss over your work, 
Dolittle.” 

“He weighs as much as ten cats! ” retorted Do- 
little, sullenly, “ and his bones are n’t pleasant to 
handle.” 

“ I shall ask the prime minister how much ten 
cats weigh,” remarked the king. “ Go on, Dolittle, 
what next ? ” 

“ After we took the boy out, Retribution and I 
caught old Jacob and stuffed him into the same 
hole, sire.” 


62 


ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 


“ Very good, ’’said the king, “ and you brought the 
boy here. But, by the way, which end of old 
Cheezer did you put in first ? ” 

Another derrick piped up gayly : 

“ Head, your Majesty,” he said, “ and we punched 
the dirt down tight about it.” 

The king reflected. “ I don’t know,” he said 
thoughtfully, “ whether that will kill him or not. 
These mortals are queer ; but so much earth in his 
mouth might be attended with serious results. 
Fizzle-Fizzle,” he said to an attendant, who wore a 
green coat like the others, and lovely rose-colored 
tights encasing his fat little legs, “ call the prime 
minister.” 

Rob could hardly keep still all this while, but he 
did not move, for fear the whole troop of elves would 
scamper off; and presently the prime minister, a 
very dignified derrick, with a long white beard and 
spectacles, came in and took his place at the king’s 
right hand. His Majesty immediately laid the 
whole matter before him and asked if he thought 
that earth in the mouth, nose, and ears of a mortal, 
pounded in tight, would be likely to kill him. The 
prime minister assumed a very wise and thought- 
ful air and was silent for some time, the whole court 


ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 63 

gazing breathlessly at him. At last, he frowned 
severely, adjusted his spectacles, and spoke. 

“ Please, your Majesty,” he said, “ it is my deliberate 
opinion that if this earth was pounded down hard 
it would kill a mortal.” 

The king coughed. “ I suppose old Cheezer ’s 
dead then,” he remarked, glancing sternly at Dolittle 
and Retribution, who stood in open-mouthed amaze- 
ment; “but probably the loss to the world is not 
great. What does my prime minister think? ” 

That worthy sighed deeply. “ I ’m always in favor 
of mercy, sire,” he said profoundly ; “ but if he ’s dead, 
he ’s probably dead.” 

“ Exactly,” said the king, lifting his crown to 
wipe the dew from his brow; “that disposes of him. 
And now about this boy ? ” 

At this Rob pricked up his ears. 

The prime minister looked at him intently. 

“ We are informed,” said the king, “ that this is 
the very boy who was stolen from his cradle in Mis- 
tress Deane’s house, in Exeter. He has the scar on 
the left ear, and you know that the pixies and the 
derricks were always accused of doing it.” 

The prime minister wagged his head so hard that 
his spectacles dropped off, and half a dozen courtiers. 


64 ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 

in green coats and pink tights, had to crawl under 
the ferns and grasses to hunt for them. 

“ It turns out,” continued the king, waving his 
hands airily, “ that the sordid peddler, Jacob Cheezer, 
stole him and brought him up to beg for him in 
London. Now, it is my intention to return him to 
Mistress Deane, to show that the derricks and the 
pixies are much belied.” 

At this, Rob could remain silent no longer ; he 
sat up and stared wildly at his Majesty, his sudden 
and clumsy movement upsetting two rows of cour- 
tiers, in pink tights, who started a terrible squeal- 
ing like so many little pigs, on their backs in the 
ferns. 

“ If it please your Majesty,” cried Rob, trying to 
speak politely, “ I ’m very much obliged to you for 
saving me from old Cheezer, but I don’t want to be 
given to any one else ; just let me loose in the woods 
and I ’ll do anything I can to serve you — anything 
— to be away from the people who beat me and ill 
use me.” 

The king put his fingers in his ears. 

“ Dear me ! ” he cried angrily, “ let some one pick 
up my pages ; he ’s upset them by scores, and their 
cries deafen me.” 


ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 65 

Poor Rob, covered with confusion at his awkward- 
ness, tried to set the little creatures up ; but at his 
touch they all fell over on their backs again, and 
screamed until they were purple in the face, and it 
was not until he kept quite still that the older der- 
ricks managed to get them all on their feet again, 
and the confusion subsided ; then the king took his 
fingers out of his ears and replied to Rob : 

“Mistress Deane is your mother,” he said sharply, 
“and a very good woman, or the derricks would not 
befriend her to find her boy. Children of your age 
should be seen and not heard. The prime minister 
will take you home himself. Domuch, harness the 
wishhounds and whisk this mortal off to Exeter at 
once.” 

Poor Rob, he wanted to protest, but he did not 
like to give offence after they had saved his life; be- 
sides, the word “ mother ” sounded new, and strange, 
and attractive to him. He had seen other little boys 
with mothers who loved them, and, after all, he had 
a mother too ! For Rob never thought of doubting 
what the King of the Derricks said, and in the end 
he permitted them to pack him off, with the prime 
minister, on a sledge of bark, cushioned with moss, 
and drawn by six beautiful light-footed hounds who 
5 


66 ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 

seemed rather to skim over the earth than to touch 
it. Away they flew, through a beautiful stately for- 
est, over wide moors and sloping hills, past villages, 
where Rob saw people, but no one seemed to see 
him ; and at last the sledge stopped at a neat little 
cottage, on the outskirts of a town, and here, in a 
garden full of country flowers — such as Rob had 
longed to have all his weary life in the city slums — 
the sledge stopped, and the prime minister led his 
charge gravely up to a rustic bench where a woman 
sat, with a sweet, sad face and gray hair. Though 
she seemed to be much startled and amazed at the 
sight of the derrick and the boy, she said nothing, 
but fell to studying Rob’s face with such troubled, 
seeking eyes, that the child’s heart went out to her, 
and he waited eagerly for the explanation. 

“ Madam,” said the dwarf, “ I am the prime min- 
ister of the King of the Derricks. Many years ago, 
— ten, I think, — your baby boy was stolen from his 
cradle, and you were told that the pixies or the der- 
ricks took him ; ” the prime minister puffed himself 
up prodigiously. “ Madam, we do that only in ex- 
treme cases, and for a reason. Your child was stolen 
by an old peddler named Jacob Cheezer.” 

“ Ah ! ” cried the poor dame sobbing, “ I always 


ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 67 

thought so ! Oh, little man, derrick, fairy — what- 
ever you are — give me but news of my boy and I 
will bless you ! ” 

The prime minister sneezed and wiped his eyes 
on a handkerchief of apple blossom. 

“ Madam, your boy was brought up a street beg- 
gar in London, by the wicked old miser, Cheezer, 
who was about to kill him, when we interfered and 
— and here he is ! ” and he pointed triumphantly at 
Rob. 

The poor dame uttered a cry of joy and held out 
her arms. And Rob ? He fell into them weeping, 
and the prime minister sneezed again. 

Oh, what joy there was, and what a reunion ! 
The derrick disappeared, and all the neighbors 
came in to rejoice, and the boy had such a supper 
as he could not remember having had in all his life 
before, and was put to bed in a clean, soft bed, in- 
stead of lying on straw. 

But in London the neighbors of old Cheezer, 
finding that something was wrong, broke into the 
house on the Strand, and there, in the garden, they 
found the old miser buried head first in the hole 
with his ill-gotten gains, his feet sticking up in the 
air. The money that he had hoarded so greedily, 


68 ROB, THE PEDDLER’S BOY 

and to such a miserable end, was taken out by some 
good people and given to the poor. No one ever 
suspected how the wicked wretch came to his end, 
though they did see a cock’s feather close beside 
the spot where he was planted — head first — the 
strangest tree that ever was put into the earth, in 
any garden in this world. 


THE ABBOT'S TROUT 














WAS a fine summer day — many, 
many years ago — that the good 
Abbot of Buckfast went fishing. 
The waters of the river Dart ran 
close under the walls of the old 
Abbey of Buckfast, and then went winding through 
green meadows and beside fern-grown banks until 
they fed the Abbot’s Pool, a black hollow in 
the river, famed for trout. And here, under the 
shadow of the trees, sat the abbot with his rod and 
line, a wicker basket for his fish, and a little brown 
jug, which he kept close at hand, quenching his 
71 




72 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 


thirst with its contents — whatever that may have 
been — and there, too, was the fragment of a ven- 
ison pasty which he had brought with him. The 
abbot was stout and comfortable-looking in his 
monk’s frock, the cowl thrown back, and his bald 
pate shining in the midst of its fringe of hair; and 
the abbot’s nose was red, and his little eyes had a 
merry twinkle as he cast his line into the still dark 
waters ; for here, in this pool, the noisy river lay 
deep and placid, scarcely a ripple stirring its sur- 
face, and so smooth that the trees and the great 
ferns on the banks were mirrored in its bosom. 
Now, there were many, many trout in this quiet 
pool, and it was a rare thing to cast a line into it 
without catching one of the beautiful, silvery fishes ; 
but this particular morning the good abbot fished 
in vain. He put the most tempting bait upon his 
hook and cast it enticingly into the water and 
waited patiently for a bite — but no, not a nibble. 
Once or twice, it is true, he certainly felt a most 
decided twitch at his line, but when he began to 
draw it in, there was nothing on the hook. He 
was very much surprised at his ill luck and changed 
his bait again and again, but all to no purpose; not 
a fish would bite, and the abbot began to be very 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 


73 


cross. It was warm, and he mopped his bald head 
and puffed and blew, and stared hard at the pool, 
for he could not imagine what had become of the 
fishes. Being so angry and so absorbed, too, he never 
noticed the astonishing thing that was happening 
right under his red nose ; nothing less than the 
strangest gambols ever performed in so sober a 
place. All about the abbot grew the great fern of 
Devon, the Osmunda, its gigantic fronds waving 
gracefully down to the very water’s edge, while 
behind him, the birches and the oaks towered 
together, making a deeply shadowed woodland ; and 
out of this mass of foliage darted little figures, all 
dressed in green, matching the foliage so perfectly, 
indeed, that if the abbot had looked about, he 
would probably have thought that it was only a 
whirl of falling leaves instead of a troop of pixies 
scampering over the ferns and under them, dancing 
and leaping about in the most amazing fashion, and 
playing all manner of tricks with the abbot himself. 
They crept up behind him and tickled his ears and 
his bald head with blades of grass, and he, poor man, 
slapped the air frantically with his handkerchief, 
thinking that some kind of a gnat had got after 
him; then they jostled his elbow, two or three of 


74 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 


them pushing it with all their might, and he fancied 
that there was a trout on his line and pulled it in 
eagerly, only to find his bait gone. Delighted with 
their success in tormenting the poor soul, the pixies 
laughed and danced in the wildest glee, and then 
one of them — bolder than his fellows — crept up 
to the abbot’s little brown jug and tried to look in; 
but it was vastly taller than he, and he had to call 
two other fairies to help him, and they lifted him 
and bolstered him up against the jug until he could 
lean over the brim. No sooner was his head 
over the edge, however, than the fumes from within 
overcame him, and he lost his balance and fell in 
with a splash just as the abbot stretched out his 
hand and lifted the jug to his lips. The two pixies 
who had assisted the bold explorer to mount, stood 
aghast, gazing with horror as they saw their daring 
comrade vanish into the abbot’s mouth. The last 
they saw was a little pair of green legs waving out 
of the abbot’s throat. Then he set the little brown 
jug down empty, wiped his lips, and baiting his hook 
anew, cast his line. But, by this time, all the pixies 
had discovered the terrible fate of their venturesome 
comrade, and they ran shrieking into the covert of 
ferns, dreadfully frightened by such a fearful calamity. 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 


75 


But strange to relate, the abbot himself showed 
no sign of uneasiness, though he had just disposed 
of a live pixy at one gulp. He went on fishing with 
apparent satisfaction, and what was stranger still, he 
had no sooner swallowed the fairy than he began to 
feel a promising nibble at his bait, and, lo and behold, 
he jerked the line and drew in a beautiful fat trout, 
quite the largest that he had ever seen. The good 
man’s eyes shone with pleasure as the lovely fish 
twisted and struggled on the hook, the sun shining 
on its beautiful silvery sides and making it appear 
doubly attractive. He caught it in his hand and 
weighed it carefully; certainly it was the largest fish, 
by a full pound, that had been caught that season, 
and a beauty, too, and he proceeded to unfasten the 
hook from its jaws. Then something amazing hap- 
pened : the fish sat up on its tail, on the abbot’s 
palm, and solemnly winked its left eye at him. 

“ Bless my soul ! ” cried the abbot, “ how very 
extraordinary! ” and he turned and reached for his 
jug for comfort; but his last drink had emptied it, 
and he set it down with a sigh and gazed long and 
earnestly at the fish. 

The trout continued to sit bolt upright on its 
tail, and this time it winked its right eye. 


76 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 


“Bottles and jugs!” exclaimed the abbot, for- 
gettinghimself altogether. “ I must be bewitched ! ” 
and he dropped the fish into his basket, muttering 
a Latin phrase or two to scare off the witches. 

Then he tried to think he had only imagined this 
strange behavior on the part of the trout, and he 
baited his hook anew, and tried to catch another 
such beauty. But the good man’s luck was singu- 
lar enough, and not another fish nibbled at his line 
that day. So, as the sun was setting in the valley 
of the Dart, the old abbot trudged home, through 
the green meadows, to Buckfast Abbey, with only 
one splendid trout in his basket, and his rod, and 
his empty brown jug. But all this while, he was 
secretly troubled at his extraordinary catch, for 
whenever he glanced into his basket that terrible 
fish sat there on its tail and winked! Yes, there 
was no doubt about it, it winked. The abbot tried 
not to notice it, for he thought he was bewitched, 
and it was very unbecoming in an abbot to be 
bewitched ; but, in some way, he was quite fascinated 
by that fish, and he could not keep from looking at 
it, every minute or two, although its terribly 
knowing winks began to be really alarming, and if 
he had not been a fat old man as well as an abbot, 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 


77 


he would have thrown away both the basket and 
the fish, and run shrieking to the abbey. But at 
last the trying walk was at an end and he drew near 
his destination; but he did not feel equal to meeting 
the other monks just then, and he avoided the main 
entrance, where he saw several of his followers 
assembled, and actually sneaked off to the kitchen 
with his trout, only too anxious to get rid of it, and 
yet rather horrified at the notion of consigning 
such a creature to the frying-pan. He was met at 
the rear door by one of the poorer monks, who 
usually labored in the kitchen garden, and this good 
man — amazed at seeing the abbot so confused and 
out of breath, stumbling along to the kitchen — 
made a deep bow and offered to take the basket 
and rod. 

“ I see your reverence has been fishing,” he said, 
“ and I hope you Ve had luck.” 

“Very poor luck indeed,” replied the abbot 
crossly, thrusting the basket into the brother’s hand 
with an eager haste that was quite unbecoming, 
“ only one fish to-day.” 

“ But certainly the finest fish of the year, my lord 
Abbot,” exclaimed the monk, “ a fish worthy to be 
cooked for your reverence’s own supper.” 


73 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 


The abbot cast a horror-stricken look at the 
basket. 

“ I shall not eat fish tonight,” he muttered, and 
positively ran toward the main entrance. 

Much astonished at the abbot’s curious behavior, 
and not heeding the fish, the good monk took the 
basket to the kitchen and handed it to the cook, 
that the trout might be prepared for the abbot’s 
supper, for he had not understood his reverence’s 
refusal to eat it. 

The kitchen of the abbey was large and clean, 
the floor of stone, and the huge chimney filling all 
of one side of the room ; and here there was a great 
roasting, and boiling, and baking, for supper was 
preparing for all the monks in Buckfast, as well as 
for the lord abbot. The cooks and the scullions were 
busy, and there was the clatter of dishes and the 
spitting and sizzling of frying fat, and a fragrant 
odor of venison, and roast duck, and fried chicken 
floated out of the windows ; for the good monks of 
Buckfast loved to live well, and, in those days, 
abbeys were almost like hotels, so many travellers 
stopped there every day for food and rest, and it 
was the lord abbot’s duty to shelter and entertain 
the stranger within his gates, whether he was poor 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 79 

or rich. So in the hurry and bustle of preparation, 
the peculiarities of the trout were entirely over- 
looked, until the chief cook — a lay brother of great 
skill and judgment — whose duty it was to prepare 
the abbot’s own meals, hastily picked up the fish 
with the intention of splitting it open to fry. The 
cook’s broad red face glistened with heat, and his 
brawny arms were bare to the elbows, and as he 
brandished his knife he did not look like a man to 
be easily frightened ; but when that strange trout 
calmly sat up on its tail in his hands, and began to 
wink one eye, the cook turned pale, and dropping 
the fish into the frying-pan, he threw away his knife 
and ran shrieking out of the kitchen. Then fol- 
lowed a great uproar, for it was thought that the 
chief cook had gone mad, and all the other cooks 
and scullions ran out after him, forgetting the meat 
on the spits and the half-baked pasties. All the 
cooks and scullions, I said, but I was wrong ; not 
all ; for a little boy, who played the part of scul- 
lion and errand boy and scrubber, stayed behind 
peering, in an amazed fashion, into the frying- 
pan. The abbot’s trout — finding it uncomfort- 
ably hot — was dancing the wildest kind of a 
fandango on the very tip of his tail, all the while 


So 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 


winking prodigiously at the frightened lad, who was 
alone to witness its antics. The boy caught his 
breath and gazed and gazed in the wildest aston- 
ishment. 

“ I be switched if I ever saw such a trout before ! ” 
cried little Joe, and, determined to save the fish 
from the fire, he snatched it out of the pan and 
flung it into a bowl of clear water. 

Overjoyed to be in his own element, the trout 
went diving about the bowl, splashing and gurgling 
with delight; while the poor scullion boy looked 
on, in a fascinated way, too much amazed to move. 
At last the fish bobbed up above the surface 
and winked once more. 

“Thank you, Joe, my dear,” said this wonderful 
trout. “ ’T is astonishing how hot a frying-pan can 
be. You’ve done me a good turn, and I’ll not 
forget it ! ” 

Thoroughly frightened at being thus addressed 
by a fish, Joe did not know what to do, but he 
thought it best to be very polite. 

“ I ’m glad I could help you, — Master Fish,” he 
stammered; “pray tell me if I can do anything 
more.” 

At this the fish shut up both its eyes very tight 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 


and laughed, which was so extraordinary that poor 
Joe began to think he was dreaming. 

“ Thank you, my dear lad,” said the trout, in a 
superior way ; “ but really I can do more for you 
than you for me. At present, however, you may 
remove this bowl to that shady corner under the 
ivy, by the wall ; I noticed it as I came in. The 
cooks will be back in a moment, and I don’t care 
to be fried, — at least, not yet; besides, there will 
be a good deal of confusion to-night, for I rather 
think that the abbot is behaving oddly,” and the 
fish laughed again. 

Joe was far too much in awe of his singular 
acquaintance to think of disobedience, so he 
staggered out of the kitchen with the heavy bowl 
in his arms, and hid it away under the ivy before 
the cooks came trooping back again, drawn by the 
smell of burnt meat and pastry. The chief cook 
glanced timidly at the frying-pan, as if he expected 
something dreadful to appear in it, but finding 
it empty, and seeing no signs of the terrible fish, 
he set about his work again, scolding at the delay 
and the burnt meat as if he were not himself the 
cause of it all ; but then, you know, some people are 
fond of laying their faults on the shoulders of other 
6 


82 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 


people. So the cook blustered, and ordered, and 
cuffed the scullions, especially poor little Joe, who 
always came in for a large share of abuse. He was 
a very poor boy, a little orphan, who had been 
picked up in the muddy streets of London by the 
abbot, on an occasion when the good man went up 
to visit the capital. It must have been for the 
king’s coronation or a great religious festival, I 
think, for in those times it was quite a fearful jour- 
ney from Buckfast to London, — it was so long, long 
ago, before King Henry the Eighth was crowned. 

Poor little Joe! He knew neither father nor 
mother, he was found in the kennel, — a foundling, 
in fact, — and he would have had a terrible life if 
the abbot had not taken him back to Devonshire. 
But even at Buckfast, Joe had a hard life, all work 
and no play. From the first he had scrubbed the 
stone floors of the cloister house, and weeded the 
kitchen garden ; he had carried wood for the fire 
when he was too small to split it, and he had 
washed the cook’s dishes, and worked, day in and 
day out, until his hands were toiUvorn and his small 
face was old and sober. He had never had the 
sunshine and play of other children, never a loving 
word or a sweet caress, only blows, and hard disci- 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 83 

pline, and coarse fare, and his only joys had been to 
listen to the singing in the abbey, when the monks 
sang the masses, or to lean out of the windows and 
listen to the “ cry ” of the Dart as it swept past the 
walls, for in Devon the murmur and splash of the 
river was called the “ cry.” And Joe liked to look 
up at the sky and to count the stars, which he 
thought were holes in the sky, where the glory 
shone through. Not many joys certainly, for a 
little lad, but he did his best, and he was not 
wholly unhappy ; but you may be sure that the 
niojit that he talked to the trout he never closed 
his eyes, but lay on his hard little bed staring out of 
the window opposite, and thinking of the strange 
fish, and longing for daybreak. And at the very 
first peep of dawn he jumped up, and throwing on 
his clothing, — very poor and coarse it was, — he 
ran softly down the narrow stone stair which led to 
the kitchen, and unfastened the door. It was so early 
that no one was stirring except the robins, and Joe 
heard them whistling sweetly in the trees as he 
crept out into the courtyard. He half expected to 
find that his wonderful trout had vanished — in- 
deed, he was not quite sure that he had not been 
dreaming; but no, there was the fish sitting up in 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 


84 

the bowl, and waving its fins, as if they were arms. 
The strange creature spied Joe at once, and hailed 
him as an old friend. 

“ Dear me,” he said, “how slow you are; it has 
been light nearly a week, I think, and you are 
just up.” 

“I’m sorry I kept your Worship waiting,” stam- 
mered Joe; “but it’s really early, for the fathers 
are not up for mass.” 

“ Never mind,” said the trout, good naturedly, 
“ boys will be boys. Go get a basket and put some 
fresh ivy leaves in it and bring it here. Be quick 
now, for this bowl is really a fearfully stupid place.” 

Quite bewildered at these strange orders, but 
afraid: to disobey, Joe hurried off and soon returned 
with a basket lined with fresh ivy leaves. And to 
his amazement, as he approached the bowl, the trout 
turned a somersault through the air and dropped 
into his basket. Joe could not help giving a little 
squeal of surprise, and then the fish laughed — a 
gurgling, fishy laugh, but still a laugh — and Joe 
felt his hair rising on top of his head, but he put a 
brave face on the matter, and held tight on to the 
handle of the basket. But it was almost too much 
even for his courage when, the next minute, the fish 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 85 

began to mutter some strange charm, and Joe felt 
his feet lifted from the ground, and he began to float 
through the air — basket, and trout, and all. To tell 
the truth, the boy was dreadfully frightened, but he 
would not confess it — and least of all to a fish ; so he 
set his teeth and held tight on to the basket, while 
he floated along, very rapidly, too, over the green 
fields by the river, through the wooded valley, and 
up, up over the tors, the gray craggy hills that 
cropped up everywhere. He was dizzy at first, but 
as he never went more than three or four feet up in 
the air, he got over that, but he could not imagine 
what was going to happen next ; and when he looked 
at the fish it was placidly fanning itself with its tail 
amongst the ivy leaves. Joe began to wish that he 
had left it in the frying-pan or the bowl, at the abbey; 
but it was too late for regrets, so he only tried to 
keep up his courage and be ready for anything that 
might happen next ; but it was really amazing to go 
floating through the air, without knowing how you 
did it, with a talking fish for a companion. What 
did happen next was that Joe suddenly came down 
very hard on his feet, so hard that he lost his 
balance and sat down, overturning the basket in his 
fall, and the fish began to scold very loudly. 


86 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 


“You great, stupid boy,” it shrieked, “you 
bumped me out on my nose. What do you mean 
by such awkwardness ? I ’ve a great mind to leave 
you alone to be cuffed and worked all your life ! ” 

Poor Joe apologized very humbly, putting the in- 
dignant trout back into the basket, and arranging 
the ivy leaves with such care that the creature was 
finally restored to a good humor. Then the boy 
looked about him and did not recognize the place; 
it must have been a long distance from the abbey, 
though they had not been long in coming. Out here 
was a wide, smooth stretch of country, little broken 
by tors or wooded land, a beautiful green spot ; and 
only a little way off was a great house of gray stone, 
mantled with ivy, and behind it were pasture lands, 
with cattle grazing, and an orchard, and some fields 
of grain. Joe rubbed his eyes and looked at it in 
amazement ; where could he be ? But the voice of 
the fish aroused him from his wonder. 

“ If you do as I tell you,” said the trout, “ you will 
be a fortunate boy. Take me in this basket and 
go to that house ; on the south side is the rose 
garden, and there you will find Lady Gilbert ; offer 
me for sale, and you will see what will happen.” 

A little doubtful after his last experience, but still 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 


87 

very curious, Joe obeyed ; and sure enough, there in 
the rose garden he found a sweet-faced gentle- 
woman walking to and fro, looking at the flowers. 
At first, she did not see the boy, but presently she 
looked up and smiled. 

“ What do you want, my lad? ” she asked, in the 
kindest voice that Joe had ever heard. 

“If you please, madam,” stammered Joe, “will 
you buy a fish ? ” and he gave an anxious look at 
his basket expecting to see the trout cutting a 
pigeon-wing; but the knowing creature lay as quietly 
as possible on the green leaves, quite the finest fish 
out of water. 

“What a beautiful trout,” said Lady Gilbert, look- 
ing at it in admiration. “ Where did you catch it, 
my child ? ” 

At this Joe turned very red and stared at the fish 
for help, and, to his amazement, he heard a voice 
like his own replying. 

“ It came out of the Abbot’s Pool, my lady,” the 
fish answered for him. 

“ Out of the Abbot’s Pool,” she cried, in surprise, 
quite unconscious of the trick that had just been 
played upon her ; “ you cannot mean the pool near 
Buckfast, child ! Why, ’t is very, very far off — two 


88 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 


days’ journey, at least — and this fish is just out of 
water.” 

“ It did come out of the Abbot’s Pool though,” 
said Joe stubbornly, speaking for himself this time. 

Lady Gilbert shook her head. “ I fear you are 
not a truthful boy,” she remarked sadly ; “ tell me 
faithfully, child, who are you ? ” 

The lad looked up at the kind face — the sweet- 
est he had ever seen — and spoke from his heart, for 
he greatly admired this lovely woman and he wanted 
her to believe in him. 

“ I am only Joe,” he said; ‘“Joe the Foundling,’ 
they call me at Buckfast Abbey, because the abbot 
found me in the street in London, when I was only 
a baby. I am the kitchen boy there, madam. I 
scrub the floors, and wash the pans, and turn the 
meat on the hempen cord, when it is roasting, and 
I weed the cook’s garden, and carry the wood, and 
draw the water, and, sometimes, I help rub down the 
abbot’s mules, and I run errands, too — I do all I can.” 

“ Dear me, you do a good deal, poor child,” said 
my lady, kindly, “ and I see how toil-worn your 
hands are, and how tired you look ; but child, child, 
how could you bring that fish from the Abbot’s Pool 
to me ? ” and she shook her head in doubt. 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 89 

Poor Joe did not know how to convince her, and 
again he regretted that he had ever seen the fish. 

“ I did bring it,” he stammered ; “ but I came 
in the strangest way, — indeed, my lady, I do not 
think you would believe me if I told you how I 
really did come. And I want you to believe me,” he 
added sadly, “ because I never saw any one so good 
and so beautiful before — and no one ever spoke so 
kindly to me.” 

She smiled a little at this. “ I ’m afraid you are 
a flatterer, Joe,” she said ; “ but, indeed, my child, I 
will believe you, if I can ; but tell me how you 
came ? ” 

And then, determined not to be balked by the 
fish, Joe set the basket on the ground and told the 
whole strange story, from the beginning, when he 
saw the fish in the frying-pan. Lady Gilbert 
listened very kindly and patiently, but I am afraid 
she did not believe the story, or thought that Joe 
had dreamed it ; and I do not know quite what she 
would have done, if something had not happened 
which convinced her that the boy told the truth. 
He had scarcely finished his tale, when lo, the fish 
rose up in the basket and bowed to Lady Gilbert 
She gave a little cry of surprise and stepped back, 


90 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 


but the next minute she was more amazed still, for 
the shining, silvery, speckled skin of the trout began 
to shrivel and curl up, like burnt paper, and out of 
the remnants rose the most charming little pixy, all 
dressed in green, with a gray cock’s feather in his 
cap — which was the green cup of a young acorn. 
Both Joe and Lady Gilbert were too much amazed 
to say anything, and stood looking at the dainty 
apparition in wide-eyed bewilderment. Seeing their 
dismay, the pixy gave way to the merriest of merry 
laughter, and bowed low to each, with his hand on 
his heart. 

“You both seem a little surprised, dear Lady 
Gilbert and dear Joe,” said the fairy; “ yet I do not 
see why you should be. We pixies are so fond 
of a little fun, and the abbot is so easy to tease, that 
we often do fret the old gentleman for a day or two ; 
and as it came in my way to do you both a service, 
I stayed in my fish skin to pay you a visit.” 

“You are kind, I am sure,” Lady Gilbert replied, 
very much embarrassed ; “ but you are the first pixy 
I ever saw, and it is a surprise.” 

The fairy smiled kindly upon her. “You may 
not have seen us,” he retorted, “ but we have always 
liked you, and we know how you have grieved over 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 


91 


the loss of your children, and your lonely life here, 
while Sir Humphrey Gilbert is away at court and 
fighting those horrid battles ; so for a long time 
we have been considering some plan of helping you, 
and, at last, I believe I ve hit on the very thing/’ 

“ I am grateful for your good-will,” she replied ; 
“ all my life, I have heard of the pixies, or hill folk, 
and it is really a pleasure to see one. And such a 
charming one, too,” she added, with her sweetest 
smile. 

The pixy laid his hand on his heart. “ Madam,” 
he said, “ the pleasure is more on my side than 
yours. My name is Good Deeds, dear Lady Gil- 
bert, and when I saw how poor and — excuse me 
— how dirty and miserable little Joe was, I thought 
of you. Here is a page for my lady, I thought, and 
one she can teach, and take care of, and help.” 
With these words the pixy suddenly touched little 
Joe with a wand of green willow wood, and the poor, 
coarse, patched clothing fell away, and there stood 
the boy, clad in the daintiest and richest of page’s 
suits. A doublet of blue velvet, with ruffles of lace, 
and long silk hose, and velvet shoes with big gold 
buckles, and a cap of blue velvet with a white plume, 
and Joe’s hair, that had been rough and tangled, fell 


92 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 


now in glossy curls, and you would never have 
known him for the same boy who worked in the 
abbey kitchen. The little scullion looked like the 
son of a prince, and he was really handsome, though 
no one had ever seen it before — or looked for it. 
Lady Gilbert laughed and clapped her hands with 
pleasure. 

“ Well done, and well done, little Good Deeds ! ” 
she cried, “ here is the finest page in all England, 
and I fear the queen will take him away from me, 
if ever she sees him.” 

But Joe — suddenly transformed from an awkward 
kitchen boy into a courtly lad — knelt on one knee 
at her feet. 

“ Nay, my dear lady,” he said very earnestly, “if 
I may be your page, and grow up in your household, 
not even the queen shall ever get me away ! For 
all my fine clothes, I am only little Joe the Found- 
line:, and I will never forget the first kind words 

O 7 O 

that were ever .spoken to me.” 

“ That ’s right,” put in the pixy ; “ fine feathers 
do not make fine birds, and if you don’t behave you 
will be quite as hateful in velvet as you would be in 
serge.” 

“I will do my best,” replied Joe, “and no one 


THE ABBOTS TROUT 


93 


can do more ; but, perhaps, Lady Gilbert does not 
want a scullion boy for a page,” he added, hanging 
his head, for he thought of the hard work and hard 
blows with a sinking heart, after this peep at some- 
thing better ; but Lady Gilbert set his mind at rest. 

“ Indeed you shall be my own little page,” she 
said kindly, “ and when you grow up you shall fol- 
low my husband, Sir Humphrey, to court. We will 
make a man of you yet, little Joe, and I will see 
the good abbot about it, so that no one will be dis- 
pleased.” 

The little boy kissed her hand and then turned to 
thank the pixy, but Good Deeds had disappeared, as 
completely as if he had never existed, and they 
would have doubted that he ever had, if they had 
not heard the ripple of merry laughter off in the 
distance. 

And this was the beginningof Joe’s good fortune. 
He became Lady Gilbert’s page, living in comfort in 
the great house, and learning to do many useful 
things ; and when he was older, he went widi Sir 
Humphrey, as she had said, and was trained for a 
soldier, as all boys were trained in those days; and 
he did his duty so well, and was so wise, and honest, 
and brave, that the Gilberts came to love him like a 


94 


THE ABBOT’S TROUT 


son, and after a while, they really did adopt him. So 
it was that from such a small thing, — a little kind- 
ness to a fish, — poor Joe, the neglected, sad, friend- 
less foundling, won a home, and a fortune, and a 
great name, for Sir Humphrey gave him his own, 
and Joe was careful never to disgrace it. 

But what happened after Joe left the Abbey of 
Buckfast, where the poor old abbot had swallowed 
a pixy alive? Ah, thereby hangs a tale ; but it is 
such a long one that it must be told all by itself — 
the story of the Madness of the Abbot of Buckfast. 


THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 

OF BUCKFAST 


95 







HE fact has been related that the 
Abbot of Buckfast went fishing, and 
that — after a day of unsuccessful 
angling — while quenching his thirst 
from his little brown jug, he acci- 
dentally swallowed a live pixy. Quite uncon- 
scious of his horrible deed, the abbot, at first, felt 
no ill effects, and proceeded as usual to the abbey 
with the solitary trout that he had caught. It was 
a little before the hour for supper, when the good 
man arrived, somewhat tired and out of breath, but 
otherwise giving no signs of any change ; but it was 
not long before his behavior created a great deal of 
7 97 




98 THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 

amazement. In the first place, he had been seen to 
run from the kitchen door to the main entrance, 
and it was very unusual for the abbot to do any- 
thing so undignified as running; and as he weighed 
something like two hundred and fifty pounds and 
was very short, he was not exactly made for an 
athlete. But this first little race was only the be- 
ginning of his queer doings. He went into the 
church, to assist at the vespers, and, lo and behold, 
when the services were over, the good fathers were 
amazed to see their superior gather up the skirts of 
his monkish frock, and, taking a hand-spring over 
the chancel rail, caper down the aisle in the most 
extraordinary fashion, his fat sides shaking and his 
cheeks quivering with the exercise. The monks 
did not know what to make of it, but they dared 
not remonstrate with the lord abbot, and they all 
flocked meekly out of church and stood gazing 
blankly at him, as he capered over the close-trimmed 
lawn, as gay as a lambkin, but presenting such a 
strange picture that the others began to smile a 
little, and one or two had to smother their laughter. 
Up and down bounced the fat little man, hither and 
yon, and he even stood on one toe and pirouetted 
in a marvellous manner, with the other foot describ- 


THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 99 

mg a circle in the air. This was too much to bear ; 
it was not only ridiculous but it was very unbecom- 
ing, and quite a crowd had gathered to look on, 
while every window in the abbey was full, and the 
cooks and the scullions came out to stare. It was 
too bad, and the subprior, a good old man who 
came next to the abbot in authority, felt that it was 
his duty to remonstrate. 

“ My lord Abbot,” he whispered, approaching the 
dancer, “ I prithee, remember who you are — and 
where you are! It is really unseemly — and your 
reverence knows how people will talk.” 

“Tra la!” sang the abbot, standing up on one 
toe and flinging the other foot high in the air, “ tra 
la, Father Eustace, let ’s go to the moon ! ” 

“ Bless my soul ! ” cried the subprior, falling back 
aghast, “ the abbot is certainly mad ! ” 

And as he spoke, the fat abbot whirled around on 
his toe and kissed his hand to the bystanders with 
the most fascinating wink. 

“ Now you shall see me go to the moon ! ” he 
cried, and tucking up his gown, so that his very fat 
legs were quite plainly seen, the abbot capered over 
the grass and — to the horror and amazement of the 
monks — began to creep up the side of a tall oak. 

L.ofC. 


IOO 


THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 


He clasped the tree firmly with his knees and 
started to ascend in a time-honored, but not very 
graceful fashion ; but alas ! the abbot was very, very 
fat, and it was long since he had clambered up a 
tree in that boyish style, and — well, he came down 
plump on his fat back, and sprawled on the grass, 
uttering a succession of sharp little squeals, that 
were not only undignified, but also very unnatural, 
for they sounded like the shrieks of an extremely 
young pig. But for all that, the good fathers were 
relieved to be able to pick him up and hustle him 
off into the cloister-house, out of sight, for they were 
in a terrible quandary. A dancing abbot in such a 
sober place ! such a thing had never been heard of ! 
And what in the world had he been doing to get 
into such a happy state ? A committee of grave 
old gentlemen went and examined the little brown 
jug, for something seemed to tell them that this 
might be at the bottom of the whole mischief, but 
nothing ever looked more innocent than that same 
little empty brown jug, and the delicious odor that 
clung to it was far from displeasing to the reverend 
fathers, and so the jug was formally acquitted of all 
guilt in the premises. Beyond a doubt, the lord 
abbot was bewitched, and the best thing that could 


THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 


IOI 


be done was to try to cast out the demon. Mean- 
while, the abbot himself had entirely recovered from 
the effects of his fall, and seemed a little sobered by 
the experience ; so when they all met in the great 
hall, where the supper was spread, he appeared quite 
himself, and the brethren began to breathe more 
freely, though the subprior still kept a watchful eye 
upon him. 

There were several tables spread ; one on the 
dais, or platform, at the end of the refectory, was 
for the lord abbot, the subprior, and any guest of 
honor; another long table for the monks, and a 
third for the lay brothers — that means members of 
the community who were not in orders. In the 
centre of each table was a huge salt-cellar, and those 
who sat above it were of higher rank than those 
who sat below. Have you never heard the phrase, 
“ Below the salt ” ? It used to be quite a com- 
mon one, and it meant the humble places at a 
banquet. 

Well, the lord abbot ate his supper soberly 
enough ; I suspect that he was quite black and 
blue, for you know he was not used to falling about 
in the fashion that he had done on the lawn, and he 
must have been bruised. The monks were all so 


102 


THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 


relieved at his return to quiet ways, that they ate 
heartily and talked pleasantly, and began to forget 
all about it, for we always do try to forget things 
that are unpleasant to remember. Matters were 
going on quite as usual, the meal was almost over, 
the tapers had been lighted, and the great refectory* 
looked as cheerful and neat as heart could wish, and 
the brethren were smiling over a rather old story of 
the subprior’s, when suddenly all their pleasure was 
spoiled. The abbot rose, with the wildest kind of 
a giggle, and took a hand-spring clear over the 
table, and began to cut a pigeon-wing in the centre 
of the hall. The monks laid down their knives — 
they had no forks in those days — and stared in 
consternation, while Father Eustace bustled down 
from the dais and tried to quiet the reverend 
dancer. 

“ My lord Abbot, my lord Abbot ! ” he cried, “ this 
is most unseemly — I prithee, remember! If you 
are — ” 

“Fudge, Father Eustace!” cackled the abbot, 
winking his eye at the subprior, “ what is the 
matter with you? Come, let us dance and be 
merry ! 

“ ‘ Tra la, and tra lore, 

You stupid old bore ! ’ ” 


THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 1 03 

he sang, pointing his finger at his friend, and 
performing another fandango. 

Poor Father Eustace was decidedly hurt at this 
unkind remark, and he could not help hearing a sly 
titter from behind him ; but the good man was too 
worried over the abbot to heed it. He wrung his 
hands in despair. 

“ He is certainly mad ! ” he cried, “ my Lord of 
Buckfast is certainly raving mad ! Woe is me ! ” 

The poor soul’s grief was so genuine that it 
would have touched a stone, and it really did sober 
the rest of the monks, who had hardly suppressed 
their mirth at the sight of their superior capering 
about on the light fantastic toe; but it had no effect 
on the hardened old abbot No, indeed ; what do 
you think he did ? Well, he took the skirt of his 
long frock between a forefinger and thumb on 
either side, he held it out as far as he possibly could, 
and he whirled around and around on his toes. 
Every little girl knows just how to do it; around 
and around, as fast as you can spin, and then drop 
suddenly, with your skirts puffed up and widely 
extended about you. It is called making a cheese. 
That is exactly what the Abbot of Buckfast did, in 
the centre of his own refectory, and in the presence 


104 THE madness of the abbot 

of all his community. Dear, dear, how shocking it 
was ! The subprior staggered back and sank on a 
settle, almost in a dead faint, and the graver and 
older men stood up, horrified at the spectacle; but 
I am afraid a few of the younger ones laughed 
behind their hands, for it certainly was the most 
amusing sight, — the fat old abbot spinning around, 
and then suddenly dropping flat on the floor. 

Whether this last wild feat was too much for 
the abbot, or whether there was really a terrible 
change in his feelings, will never be known, but 
certain it is, that his high spirits suddenly drooped, 
his eyes lost their twinkle, even his nose grew pale, 
and he clasped his hands to his stomach with a 
fearful squeal. The monks hurried to his assist- 
ance, for no one could mistake his evident anguish. 

“ What ails your reverence ? ” they anxiously 
inquired. “ Is your lordship ill ? ” 

But the abbot made no reply ; he only rocked to 
and fro, squealing very much like a pig, and now 
and then doubling up with a spasm of pain. 

“ He is ill ! ” cried the subprior, recovering from 
his weakness, “ that accounts for it all ! Is your 
reverence in pain ? ” 

“ Oh, oh, oh ! ” squealed the abbot, shaking his fat 


THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 1 05 

fists at Father Eustace. “ You Ve put something live 
in my food, you hoary old villain ! I ’ve swallowed 
a porcupine, I certainly have ! ” and he rocked him- 
self in his misery and shrieked at the top of his 
lungs, his face growing redder and redder every 
moment, and his eyes bulging out of his head. 

Old Father Squills, the physician of the abbey, 
now came to his aid, and declared that the abbot 
must be carried up to his bed, and be blistered and 
bled and dieted according to his directions; and, in 
spite of the patient’s squeals, he was carried off by 
four stout brothers and put to bed. But alas, this 
was only the beginning: his case was far from 
yielding to the treatment of Father Squills, or any 
other father in the abbey, and he became so violent 
and so savage that the brethren began to tremble 
and believed that their superior had been bewitched. 
Whenever they approached him, he screamed and 
made grimaces at them and pelted them with his 
pillows, his sandals, his bottles of drugs, everything, 
indeed, that he could lay his hands on. At last, 
the affair waxed so alarming that it was decided to 
summon all the great doctors within reach, and mes- 
sages were accordingly sent hither and thither, and 
every physician in the kingdom was called to see 


106 THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 

the wonderful case of the Abbot of Buckfast. But 
it took a long time to travel from place to place, 
and not all these grave personages could respond 
to the invitation, but five great doctors did come, 
three from London and two from places nearer 
Buckfast ; and one fine morning they all arrived — - 
these learned and important doctors — and with 
them a poor young physician, an assistant of the 
most famous of all, Dr. Killemsure. The older ones 
all came riding on horses or mules, richly clad in 
velvet or silk, with gold chains around their necks, 
and long cloaks of rich stuffs, and they were re- 
ceived with all due ceremony and respect, and 
ushered into the room where the reverend patient 
was sitting up in bed, making faces and pelting 
-his attendants. As soon as the great physicians 
entered, that dreadful old abbot let fly a bolster — 
with such skill and exactness of aim that he hit Dr. 
Killemsure fairly on the nose — and then he 
squealed with delight. Quite naturally, the physi- 
cians decided at once that he was raving mad, and 
ordered him to be bound while they made their 
examination. Accordingly, the abbot was tied in 
bed, where he screamed and kicked while the saees 
gravely consulted, and poked and prodded him in 


THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 1 07 

every tender part of his body. They looked at his 
tongue and the whites of his eyes ; they felt his pulse 
and pounded his chest ; but still it was evident that 
they could not agree. One thought it was this, and 
another swore it was that, and the dispute was hot 
and long. Only the young physician, Michael 
Twopenny, said nothing, but closely watched the 
patient, and it was thus that he, and he alone, saw 
the strange thing that happened. For, while the 
doctors argued and disputed, the abbot was quite 
unnoticed, and all of a sudden, the fat old gentle- 
man sneezed — sneezed tremendously — raising the 
echoes, and out of his mouth hopped a little crea- 
ture all dressed in green. Quick as a flash, young 
Dr. Twopenny pounced on this tiny thing, and 
thrusting it deep into a green bag he carried, drew 
up the strings and tied them securely. 

And now a wonderful change took place. The 
abbot came to himself; in fact, he was completely 
restored in an instant, and wanted to know the 
meaning of it all, and the great doctors were as 
much at a loss to explain his recovery as they had 
been to understand his disease. There was a 
good deal of grumbling and growling among them 
at being called from such a distance for nothing; 


108 THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 

and it took all the abbot’s diplomacy, and a splendid 
dinner in the refectory, and plenty of good wine 
from the cellars of Buckfast, to put them in a pleas- 
ant humor again. But while the great men were 
beinof entertained, no one remembered the humble 
young leech — they called a doctor a leech then 
— Master Michael Twopenny. He had offered no 
opinion about the abbot’s disease, and he made no 
comments on his recovery ; but, being no longer 
needed, he quietly departed with his green bag 
under his cloak, and rode off to his own home at 
Dartmouth. 

This same young Michael Twopenny, the son 
of poor but worthy people, was struggling hard to 
make his living, and was really a very good doctor; 
but I am afraid that most of his patients were ex- 
tremely poor people — sailors and fishermen, and 
their families, living in the old seaport of Devon — 
and those that were not so poor were extremely 
forgetful about paying the doctor. Michael’s purse 
was usually slim and his doublet threadbare ; 
but, for all that, he was very popular, and he had 
few ill-wishers, for he had a kind heart and a cheer- 
ful way, and was always ready to do for others, no 
matter how little they did for him. But just at this 


THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 109 

time he was very unhappy. He had set his heart 
on a charming young girl who lived in his neighbor- 
hood, but the charming young girl had a father that 
was anything but charming, — the wealthy brewer, 
Jacobi us Duds. The brewer was not a bad man in 
his way; but he was enormously rich, and ex- 
cessively proud of his wealth and his own impor- 
tance. He had built himself a great house of stone 
on High Street, a house with oriel windows, supported 
by quaintly carved brackets which represented mon- 
strous dolphins, and lighted by many diamond 
panes, which he had imported from France, for 
window-glass was rare in those days. The walls of 
his house were hung with rich tapestries, and he 
had many luxuries which made his poorer neighbors 
stare with envy ; and Master Duds himself had grown 
to be very overbearing, and puffed up with his riches, 
and he looked down with contempt on the poor 
young surgeon across the street who had dared to 
lift his eyes to his daughter, the lovely Mistress 
Dolly Duds. His daughter, he said, should marry 
a prince or a duke, at the very least, and he ’d see 
that threadbare young scamp of a saw-bones in the 
bottom of one of his hogsheads of beer before he 
gave him Dolly Duds. As for Mistress Dolly her- 


I IO 


THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 


self, though I fear she was rather vain of her wealth, 
and wore the most marvellous lot of fine clothes, 
still she had smiled across the way at poor Michael, 
and she did sometimes loiter on her way home when 
the young doctor met her — quite by chance, of 
course — at the other end of the street. In fact, as 
the princes and dukes in the vicinity were rather 
scarce, Mistress Dolly grew very friendly, and 
smiled until all the dimples showed in her rosy 
cheeks. Once she even threw a rosebud out of 
the window to young Master Twopenny, and alas, 
that rosebud caused a great deal of woe ; for the 
brewer chanced to be coming home just at that 
moment, and he flew into a terrible rage and vowed 
that he would shut Dolly up and feed her on bread 
and water, if she ever spoke to her poor admirer 
again. What was worse, he was as good as his 
word, and the lovely Dolly spent the next week in 
a little room high up in a turret at the back of the 
house, where she could not get even a peep at her 
neighbors across the street; and though I do not 
think she exactly lived on bread and water, yet I am 
afraid that her fare was unusually plain, and she 
passed a good deal of her time in crying with vexa- 
tion, while poor young Twopenny raged and stormed 


THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 


1 1 1 


at the door in vain, and the hard-hearted brewer 
laughed him to scorn. 

Matters had reached this state, when the abbot’s 
illness caused such a sensation, and young Dr. Two- 
penny went with his friend and master, Dr. Killem- 
sure, to the Abbey of Buckfast, and, as we know, it 
was Michael who bagged the pixy, and carried it 
safely home to his lodgings in Dartmouth. Before 
he proceeded any farther, however, he rushed over 
to the great house opposite to inquire for the lovely 
Dolly ; but it was all to no purpose. The footman 
turned him away with a sneer and a stare at his 
threadbare suit, and old Duds shook his fist out of 
his window at him, and told him to hire himself out 
for a scarecrow, for he was certainly dressed like 
one and not like a suitor for the great and lovely 
Mistress Duds. Angry and mortified, Michael 
went back to his lodgings, and sat down to a frugal 
supper with such a sad heart that he entirely forgot 
the abbot and his illness, until his eyes suddenly 
alighted on the green bag lying in the corner, 
where he had tossed it. In a moment his interest 
revived, for, though they did not talk so much about 
microbes then, he probably imagined that he had 
something very like a microbe in that bag, or, per- 


I 12 


THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 


haps, he would have called it a “ porwiggle,” for that 
is what they called tadpoles many, many years ago 
in England. Whatever his thoughts may have been, 
he straightway picked up the bag, and cautiously 
— very cautiously — untied the strings, intending 
to shake the creature out into a bowl that he had 
set on the table ; but no sooner had he untied the 
string than — whiz ! — out flew the pixy, and, whirl- 
ing around on one leg, it flounced itself down on 
the table, very much as the abbot had done on the 
floor of the refectory. Michael jumped back in 
no little alarm, and stood staring at the tiny, green- 
clad figure in the greatest amazement. Seeing his 
dismay, the pixy laughed. 

“Hello!” he said; “how do you do, Master 
Twopenny? And how’s Mistress Dolly?” he 
added, with a tremendous wink. 

“ My stars ! ” cried the young physician ; “ and 
you came out of the abbot’s mouth? Well, well, 
I’m not at all surprised that the poor old gentleman 
had the colic ! ” 

“ Te he ! ” laughed the pixy ; “ but did n’t I have 
a fine time, though I know all my friends are in 
mourning, for I heard them shriek when I took a 
header down the abbot’s throat. In fact, I ’ve got 


THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 1 1 3 

to hurry off now to reassure them ; but, before I go, 
I will give you a little help and advice. It makes a 
fellow benevolent to get out of the inside of an ab- 
bot. I can tell you, it ’s not a pleasant place to be! ” 

“ I am sure I shall be very grateful for your good 
offices,” responded Michael, with a smile, for he did 
not believe the pixy could help him ; “ but I fear 
there is not much for you to do.” 

“ Oh, is n’t there ?” cried the pixy, with a knowing 
look. “ But how about Mistress Dolly? ” 

Master Twopenny turned very red. “ I am cer- 
tain that you cannot do anything for her,” he replied 
stiffly. 

“Can’t I?” said the fairy. “Well, we shall see, 
young man, we shall see. Here is a phial with a 
precious ointment in it,” he added, pointing to 
a tiny bottle of clear liquid that suddenly rose out 
of the table ; “ when you are called to cure Master 
Duds, use that, and your fortune is made, — that is, 
if you have any wit.” 

Michael rubbed his eyes and stared at the phial ; 
where in the world did it come from ? He took it 
up and felt of it, and, yes, sure enough, it was solid 
and real, and its contents exhaled a most delightful 
odor. But there was one thing past belief. 

8 


I H THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 

“ I never shall be called to attend old Duds ! ” he 
declared, “ never ! and more, he ’s not even ill.” 

“ Oh, yes, he is,” cried the pixy, laughing, “ and 
with a complaint that will puzzle the doctors, for 
my half-brother, Special Torment, has been pinching 
his nose all the day.” 

“He was well enough to insult me an hour ago ! ” 
said Michael, indignantly. 

“ Don’t be a fool,” replied the other ; “ he ’s ill, 
I tell you ; and, after all the other doctors have 
failed, he will send for you. Apply the ointment to 
the tip of his nose, and then demand Mistress Dolly 
to be your wife.” 

“Pshaw!” cried young Twopenny. “It would 
take ten bottles of magic to take the color out of 
that nose, — and ten thousand to make him give me 
Dolly ! ” 

u Oh, very well ! ” retorted the pixy. “ If you 
don’t believe me, don’t try ; but if you ’re not a 
goose, you will do what I say. Good-bye, Master 
Michael, and good luck ! ” And with this, before 
the young doctor could interfere, the little crea- 
ture darted out of the window and vanished from 
sight. 

What was more amazing, in half an hour, Michael 


THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 


115 


heard a great uproar across the street. Servants 
were running this way and that, the doctor was called 
and the parish priest, and in a short time, the whole 
town was astir over the fearful illness of the brewer, 
the great and wealthy Jacobius Duds. For Master 
Duds was ill with a very strange disease. Scarcely 
had he shaken his fist at poor young Dr. Two- 
penny, when his nose began to swell, and then his 
face and his head followed suit, and, if you will be- 
lieve me, by evening Jacobius’s head was quite as 
big as one of his own hogsheads, and his face was so 
swollen that his eyes had entirely disappeared, and 
he could only bellow a few words at a time. In fact, 
he was a most shocking and fearful sight, and no 
one could bear to look at him, and no one — not the 
greatest doctor of all — knew what to do, though he 
had summoned all those who went to Buckfast, and 
a great many more ; and as he was so wealthy they 
all came, as fast as they could, and in a week the 
town of Dartmouth was as full of doctors as a bee- 
hive of bees, and yet poor old Jacobius sat there 
with a head like a hogshead, bellowing with pain 
and rage, and not one of them could help him the 
least bit in the world. Then it was that Dolly 
Duds, having escaped from her imprisonment, in- 


I 1 6 THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 

sisted upon smuggling in the young doctor from over 
the way ; for like many other young women before and 
since, pretty Dolly had more faith in her lover than 
other people had, and she thought what a grand 
thing it would be if he — her own despised Dr. 
Twopenny — should be the one to cure her father, 
after all. So, strange to relate, the pixy’s prophecy 
came true, and Michael was summoned to attend 
the brewer, and you may be sure that he came in a 
hurry, and that he had a certain wonderful phial 
down in his pocket. As Jacobius could not see, he 
made no objection to Michael’s approach, and only 
bellowed with pain as usual, and the young doctor 
— without a word — quietly opened the phial and 
gently rubbed the tip of the brewer’s nose with 
the delicately scented ointment. To tell the truth, 
Michael was himself a little doubtful of the result, 
so fancy his amazement when the swelling began to 
subside at once, and in ten minutes the patient was 
as well as ever, and sat staring in amazement at the 
physician who could achieve such a miracle. But 
when he discovered who it was — the despised and 
shabby young Twopenny — he began to growl in a 
most ungrateful way, for no sooner was he free of the 
pain, than he began to forget all he had suffered, 


THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 1 17 

and was only anxious to be rid of this audacious 
neighbor of his. 

“ So ! ” he said, cross as a bear, “ ’t was you who 
cured me. Ton my word, these physicians must be 
very poor beggars indeed, to be beaten by a pin- 
feather boy like you ; but here, — Dolly, you minx, 
give me my purse — now, what do you want, sir? 
Name your price and be off!” 

This was Michaels opportunity, and remember- 
ing his friend the pixy, he bowed gravely to old 
Master Duds and waved back the purse. 

“ Money will not pay me,” he said proudly, with 
a glance at the blushing Dolly, who stood behind 
her father’s chair. “ I have cured you of a dreadful 
complaint, Master Duds, and I will be paid only in 
one way.” 

“ Pretzels and beer ! ” snapped the brewer, with a 
fearful frown. “ Hear the young cub ! But name 
your price, Sir Twopenny; no one shall say that I 
would n’t pay.” 

“ Your daughter, Mistress Dorothy Duds for my 
wife — that is the price, sir,” said Michael firmly. 

Dear me, you ought to have heard the fearful 
roar and bellow that came from old Duds ! He 
jumped up from his chair and fairly danced with 


1 18 THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 

rage, shaking his fists and blowing out his cheeks, 
and stamping about like one possessed, while poor 
Dolly was so frightened that she nearly fainted away, 
and, if the truth be told, Michael felt rather shaky 
at the knees, but he kept a bold front. 

“ The impudent wretch ! The saucy varlet ! ” 
screamed Jacobius, choking with rage and sputter- 
ing — like the end of a candle in the socket — “my 
daughter — my daughter ! I ’d drown her in beer 
first! Get out of my sight, you young beast, get 
out of my sight ! I swear that I ’d go with my head 
as big as a church before I ’d give you Dolly Duds !” 

And he danced and screamed, and picking up his 
great gold-headed staff that he carried to church, 
he chased Michael out of the room and down the 
stairs, screaming and bellowing all the way, while 
the servants looked on and laughed and sneered at 
the beggarly young doctor from over the way, and 
poor little Dolly cried until her nose was red, and 
gave up all hope of her lover’s success. But there ’s 
an old adage, that pride comes before a fall, and the 
proud old brewer was destined to have one. Scarcely 
had Michael shut the door of his own humble lods:- 
ings, before Master Duds felt some fearful pangs in 
the tip of his nose, and, to his horror, it began to 


THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 1 19 

swell and puff and the more he bellowed the larger 
it grew, and then his face and his head followed suit, 
at such an alarming rate that it really seemed as if 
he would have a head as big as a church. You see, 
he had rejoiced too soon, before the cure was com- 
plete, or else that wicked little pixy had been up to 
his tricks again. However it was, poor old Jacobius 

— for we cannot help pitying him, cross as he was, 

— found his last state worse than his first, and he 
raved, and bellowed, and used some very hard words, 
but all to no purpose, for he would not send for that 
impudent young wretch, not he ! He sent, instead, 
for all the fine doctors who had failed before, and 
he sent for others besides, and he called them fools, 
and gumps, and drivelling idiots, because they could 
not cure him, but — horror of horrors — he kept on 
swelling! And now, he was such an awful sight 
that all the townspeople came to see, and fought at 
the doors for a peep at the brewer with the swelled 
head ; for you must know that such a thing as a 
circus was unheard of in those old times, and poor 
Jacobius was almost as good as aside show to the 
town of Dartmouth. The news of his fearful afflic- 
tion spread far and wide, and by the end of the week, 
people were coming from the whole country-side to 


120 


THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 


see, and when they heard of his boast to the poor 
young doctor they wagged their heads. What would 
he do, if he did swell up as big as a church ? 

But the end was near ; between swelling and 
burning old Jacobius was nearly broken down, and 
at last he sent to beg the despised Dr. Twopenny 
to come, and he offered him half his fortune if he 
would come and cure him. But no, Michael said, — 
Dolly Duds or nothing at all — and slammed his 
door on the nose of the servant who had sneered at 
him only a week ago. You can imagine how Mas- 
ter Duds raved at the answer, and declined to accept 
the terms; but that night he kept on swelling and — 
mercy! by morning his head was so big that it 
had to be propped up with posts a foot thick, to 
keep it from breaking his neck in two. Then he 
gave up and sent for Michael. He should marry 
Dolly and have the finest wedding in the world if 
he would come and come quick ! Of course the 
young doctor went with his magical bottle and 
coolly anointed the tip of Jacobius’s nose, and at once 
the swelling subsided, his head grew small, and he 
felt as well as ever. This time he was really 
grateful, so grateful that he grabbed Michael by both 
hands, and danced, and capered, and laughed for joy, 


THE MADNESS OF THE ABBOT 


I 2 I 


and sending for Dolly, he ordered a very fine dinner, 
and invited the town to meet his future son-in-law. 

And the old man was true to his word. He gave 
Dolly the finest wedding that had ever taken place 
in Dartmouth. The streets were illuminated, flags 
were flying, bands played, and barrels of beer were 
opened before the brewer’s door, that all the town 
might make merry. There was a beautiful cere- 
mony in the church, and garlands of flowers, and a 
procession of boys and girls, all dressed in white, 
and a great banquet for rich and poor, and no end 
of rejoicings. A great many people thought they 
saw some strange little green figures dancing about 
in the wildest glee, but no one was sure. 

As for Michael, he grew so famous from this won- 
derful cure that patients flocked to his door, and he 
and Dolly became great people, and did a great deal 
of good with the money the brewer gave her for 
her wedding portion; and old Jacobius was so fond 
and proud of his celebrated son-in-law, the wise 
physician, that he could not do enough to make 
amends for his past treatment of him. And they all 
lived happy ever after, thanks to the pixy that 
the abbot swallowed. 






TOMMY THE BAD 





\ 



123 




HERE lived in England, 
once upon a time, a little 
boy named Thomas Teazer, 
but that was not the name 
by which he was really known in the 
county where he lived. All those who 
knew him best, his old friends and his 
kindred and neighbors, called him 
“ Tommy the Bad,” and they had good 
reason to do so, for he was certainly a 
bad boy, and a great nuisance in the 
neighborhood. If there was any mis- 
chief going on Tommy was usually at 
the bottom of it, or the top, and he was 
quite as sure to be in any naughtiness. 
He was a perfect terror to all the old 
women, and as for the dogs, and the 
cats, and the chickens, they fled at the 
sight of him. Perhaps he was not born 
cruel, but certainly he had become so, 
either from thoughtlessness or evil ex- 
ample. He was always throwing stones 
or shooting arrows, and there was 
hardly a dog or a cat in the place that 
had not been at one time or another 



I2 5 




126 


TOMMY THE BAD 


lamed by Tommy the Bad. As for the birds, he 
was always killing them — from pure love of doing 
unkind things — and he robbed every nest for miles 
around, so that the very robins must have hated 
him. He never lost an opportunity to do some- 
thing mean — he thought it such fun to plague 
other people, though he would not have liked it so 
well if they had plagued him in the same fashion. 

Thus it chanced that one fine morning Tommy 
was out in the meadows looking about for some- 
thing to do ; nothing useful, you may be sure, but 
something naughty, for there is an old proverb, that 
Satan always finds something for idle hands to do. 
It was a charming day: the sloping meadows were 
covered with short green turf, dotted thick with the 
little English daisies, pink and white, and directly in 
Tommy’s path grew a tall, straight oak tree, a 
graceful, stately tree, with its dark, glossy leaves and 
its green acorns only half formed, its branches 
gently swayed by the breeze. Tommy looked at it 
in some surprise, for he could not recollect that he 
had ever seen it before, though he had crossed that 
field twenty times in the last month ; and an oak, as 
we all know, does not grow in a day, or a year 
either, and this was a tall and finely shaped tree. 


TOMMY THE BAD 


127 


However, Tommy was not a speculative boy; his 
mind was too busy planning mischief and naughti- 
ness to concern itself with more serious things, so 
he thought that, in some way, he must have over- 
looked that tree. But just as he came to this con- 
clusion and was going on, in his idle way, a robin 
darted out of the foliage and flew off in the distance. 
A gleam came into Tommy’s eye. “Ah, ha! ” he 
thought, “there must be a nest up there, and I’ll 
have the eggs, or the young birds — whichever are 
there.” In a trice, he pulled off his jacket, and 
started to climb the tree, intent on the fun of break- 
ing up the poor robin’s home; for — when you stop 
to think of it — every such nest in a tree or under 
the eaves of the house, is a home, a miniature of 
your home and mine, and the little birds are God’s 
creatures, too, with their own affections, and griefs, 
and fears. 

Tommy never thought about that, of course, but 
went on clambering up the straight trunk, no easy 
task, for the lowest limb was high over his head ; 
but he was a very agile and daring boy and he had 
climbed all his life; so, on he went, higher and 
higher, all the while peering up through the foliage, 
looking for a nest, and it was not long before his 


128 


TOMMY THE BAD 


sharp eyes spied one. It was there, but it was up 
very high, almost at the top of the tree, set securely 
in the fork of two branches, and woven in that won- 
derful fashion in which birds build their homes. It 
was a fine large nest, and Tommy’s eyes twinkled 
with satisfaction, and on he went, among the branches 
now, stepping from one to another, swinging him- 
self lightly along, at a dizzy height above the ground 
and still going higher. The breeze rustled the 
broad leaves around and above him, making a soft, 
delicious noise, which was, perhaps, the reason he 
did not notice a scratching and clambering in the 
tree below him, and never suspected that any trouble 
was in store for him, until he felt a sharp sting in one 
of his legs. Tommy gave a squeal of pain and tried 
to look down to see what kind of a wasp had stung 
him; but twist his head as he would, he could see 
nothing, and meanwhile, he felt another horrible jab 
in the other leg. He shrieked with pain and rage, 
and, forgetting the nest, began to let himself down, 
intent on either finding or escaping this unseen 
enemy. But no sooner had he fairly turned around 
and begun his descent, than he was stung in every 
direction, and, to his horror, discovered — not a wasp 
or anything of that sort, dear me, nothing of the 


TOMMY THE BAD 1 29 

kind! — he discovered that the whole tree below 
him was simply swarming with little men, all clad 
in green. In fact, for a moment, he thought they 
were only large leaves, but a second glance showed 
him their eager little faces and sharp, twinkling 
eyes; and he saw the cause of his troubles, too, for 
each gnome was armed with a sharp-pointed reed 
which — to his sorrow — Tommy knew was as keen 
and hard as the blade of a knife. What made mat- 
ters worse, too, was the fierce and angry expression 
of their upturned faces. They looked as if they 
hated him and intended to hurt him as much as 
they could; and Tommy, being, like all bullies, a 
great coward, screamed with fright and climbed 
frantically higher up to escape, but to no purpose. 
Up swarmed the derricks after him, prodding here 
and prodding there, with malicious fury, and utter- 
ing shrill little squeals of exultation whenever he 
winced or groaned with pain; and he was in great 
pain, for they were a good deal worse than a swarm 
of angry hornets, and directed their operations in a 
far more skilful and deadly way. Poor Tommy! 
He forgot the nest altogether, he forgot everything 
but these dreadful little creatures, and he clambered 
from branch to branch, trying to draw up his legs 
9 


130 


TOMMY THE BAD 


after him, as fast as he could, but he could not 
escape his enemies. They were as nimble as gadflies, 
and they seemed rather to enjoy the race. They 
swarmed all about him, and they laughed, and they 
jeered, and they thrust at him with their little spears, 
until he fairly howled with pain and fright. 

“Up with you ! ” they shrieked. “ Get the robin’s 
nest.” 

“ Oh, let me go down,” sobbed Tommy, quite 
cowed with fear ; “ let me go down, and I ’ll never, 
never touch a robin’s nest again!” 

“ Let you go down ! ” they cried. “ Not a bit of it ! 
Up with you, into the robin’s nest, and we ’ll teach 
you a lesson, you little brute ! ” and they prodded him 
hard and fast. 

With a groan of pain, Tommy started once more 
on his fearful ascent, pursued by the derricks from 
limb to limb. And now he began to discover an- 
other trouble ; the harder and higher he climbed, 
the taller grew the tree; it seemed to shoot up in 
the air — in the most marvellous manner — and the 
nest was always just a little above his head, just out 
of reach ; but the derricks were not out of reach ; 
they were close behind, pricking, and mocking, and 
driving him on. When he looked down his head 


TOMMY THE BAD 


swam, for the tree had grown so tall that the earth 
seemed at least a mile off, and other trees were 
little more than shrubs, by comparison ; and here 
was Tommy, suspended in mid-air, surrounded by 
foes, and still the tree seemed to grow, and the nest 
was not yet within his grasp. 

Thoroughly subdued, Tommy stopped, and cling- 
ing to a branch, implored the derricks to let him 
off. 

“No, no,” they replied; “you’ve never had mercy 
for others, and we have none for you ! Up you must 
go — up, up !” and they stung him so fiercely that 
Tommy went. He saw, at last, that compassion was 
a better quality than he had thought it, and already 
he began to repent of his own cruel ways; but, alas 
for him, it was too late. 

Up, up, he climbed, panting for breath, his 
eyes half out of his head with fright, and still the 
derricks swarmed after him, prodding him in the 
rear with increasing fury, and yelling with rage 
and triumph. 

“ You would rob all the nests, would you ? ” they 
screamed. “ You kill all the young birds and leave 
only the old ones to mourn. Ugh, you rogue — 
we’ll see to you now, we’ll teach you a lesson.” 


132 TOMMY THE BAD 

“Oh, pity me!” shrieked Tommy, in tears. “I 
can’t climb any farther — I shall surely fall!” 

But he was answered only by shouts of derisive 
laughter, and such fierce stabs that he clambered up 
again, and this time the nest really stood still; but 
it grew larger and larger as he drew near, until, as 
the exhausted boy reached it, it was as large as a 
bushel basket. Mad with fear and pain Tommy 
leaped into it, to escape the malicious little crea- 
tures behind ; but, horror of horrors ! the bottom 
dropped out, and he fell through, not into the open 
air, but apparently right into the trunk of the tree ; 
for it was like falling down a dark, straight tunnel, 
and he kept on falling — down, down, down, inside 
the tree. You remember that the tree had crown 
enormously tall, so, of course, the fall from a nest 
in the top to the bottom would be a tremendous 
distance ; and Tommy kept on falling, very much 
as we do sometimes in dreams, dropping swiftly 
through space, with a qualm of fear and giddiness, 
and landing with a jerk that makes us wake up 
with a start; but as Tommy was not dreaming, 
but wide awake, he landed with a most terrific 
bump, bump, and found himself in the strangest 
place he had ever seen. It looked like a cavern, all 


TOMMY THE BAD 


133 


lined with feathers, and twigs, and old women’s 
ravellings, and bits of hair, and bundles of rags, but 
all these unsightly things were so interwoven with 
the daintiest straw and foliage that the effect of the 
whole was picturesque. Tommy rubbed his eyes 
and stared, too dazed by his fall and his fearful ex- 
perience to move; and what was his amazement to 
behold a company of birds — robins and larks, night- 
ingales and wrens, and gay little sparrows — all sit- 
ting solemnly about the place, and all staring 
gravely at him in the deepest displeasure. The 
slayer of birds, and the robber of nests, had lost his 
courage, and he sat there frightened half to death, 
for instinct warned him that more trouble was in 
store for him ; therefore he was not surprised to 
hear these birds solemnly conversing together in a 
tongue that he could not understand, and finally 
one of them — a robin — stepped out of the circle 
and gravely addressed him. 

“ Thomas Teazer,” squeaked the bird, “commonly 
called Tommy the Bad, you have been tried before 
the court of the birds, and found guilty of murder, 
and rapine, and assault, and you are sentenced to 
expiate your diabolical crimes by remaining — for one 
whole day — in the skin of a robin. This court 


134 


TOMMY THE BAD 


agreeing, you are transformed.” And the robin 
waved one claw. 

Tommy opened his mouth to remonstrate, but 
stopped short, for his mouth and nose suddenly 
ceased to exist, and he had only a bill, and bills are 
always unpleasant; and then, to his horror, his arms 
began to prick and feel strangely, and feathers 
started out and grew into wings, and with a cry of 
horror he looked where his feet ought to have been, 
and there were claws ; then he felt a tremendous 
burning and throbbing at the tip of his spinal 
column, and — agony of agonies — Tommy the Bad 
had a tail ! He screamed with all his might, but it 
was only the cry of a bird now, no louder than the 
wail of many a bird that he had stoned to death, and 
just as unlikely to bring help or pity. What was 
worse, he began now to shrink, one of the most 
painful processes in the whole world — it is always 
so hard to be cut down, and made small, and of no 
importance. Tommy had always been a con- 
ceited boy, with a vastly better opinion of himself 
than others had of him, and now he was shrinking, 
not gradually and gently, but tremendously — all at 
once — from a big, well-grown lad of ten into a 
robin. Think of the dreadful shrivelling and shrink- 


TOMMY THE BAD 


*35 


in g that must have gone on. Meanwhile, the birds 
chattered among themselves, and twittered and flut- 
tered about, apparently charmed with their work ; 
and now and then one of them would give the 
victim a particularly vicious peck, and pull out a 
bunch of feathers, which hurt Tommy terribly and 
made him shriek with pain. 

At last the transformation was over, and no 
sooner was Tommy an average-sized robin, than the 
other birds set upon him, with beak and claw, and 
drove him before them to an opening in the nest, 
where the daylight shone in, and through this they 
hustled him out into the world — and a very differ- 
ent world it looked to him through a pair of bird’s 
eyes. The first thing he saw, when he got out, was 
a field of grain, and he thought the grain was at 
least a mile high, and a cow in the distance had 
taken on the dimensions of an elephant. Quite 
overcome by all he had gone through, Tommy 
crouched for a while on the ground, a very miser- 
able-looking bird ; and his first attempt to walk was 
certainly strange, for he did not know how to hop 
along like a robin, and he could not walk with bird’s 
claws and legs, so he ended in a sort of a scramble, 
which made him extremely tired ; and when he tried 


TOMMY THE BAD 


136 

to fly, it was equally difficult, and he flopped about 
in a hopeless manner and was nearly upset by a 
large cricket that chanced to be in his way. It took 
him some time, therefore, to learn how to travel 
around, and he was getting very hungry and thirsty, 
and did not know where to get any food, and was 
just looking about for a pool of water, when he 
suddenly espied a huge, fierce, gray cat, with eyes 
of fire, crouched ready to spring. It gave Tommy a 
chill down his spine. He had never even imagined 
the horrors of being eaten alive, until he saw that 
awful gray tabby licking her lips and swinging her 
tail with a horribly ferocious waggle. Tommy was 
poor at flying, but I can tell you he stretched his 
wings and flopped into the nearest tree, and held 
tight to the branch, in an agony of terror, while the 
cat slowly and stealthily crept nearer and nearer, 
with her green eyes glaring and her terrible tail. 
She was going to climb the tree! Poor Tommy! 
He began to realize some of the terrors of a bird’s 
existence as he flew off again, a little more lightly 
and swiftly, for he improved with practice ; and this 
time he escaped the cat and landed safely in a grove 
of birches where there were other birds, and he 
hoped to find a friend in his hour of need. But, 


TOMMY THE BAD 


137 

either Tommy’s transformation was publicly known 
to the whole feathered tribe, or it was not perfect 
enough to deceive their bright eyes, and they either 
avoided him, or fell upon him, and pecked and drove 
him out of their company; lonely, and sore, and 
faint with hunger, Tommy fled to a quiet tree and 
there determined to eat a bug — better a bug than 
starve, he thought. So, screwing up his courage, he 
snapped up just such a bug as he had seen another 
robin enjoy, but horrors! he spit it out. It kicked 
and buzzed in his very bill, and poor Tommy’s 
human stomach refused to receive it. Remember- 
ing that food was thrown to the chickens in every 
barnyard, he determined to go over to a house he 
saw in the distance, and look for a crumb of com- 
fort; and stretching his wings he started upon his 
journey. Scarcely had he left the shelter of the 
woods, however, before an arrow whizzed close to 
his head, frightening him almost out of his wits, and 
he flew so fast that when he at last arrived near the 
house, he was panting for breath, and could only 
cling to the branch of a tree and look about him. 
The tree was in the rear of the house, and some 
hens were feeding comfortably just below poor 
Tommy, and while he watched, the housewife came 


TOMMY THE BAD 


138 

out with another pan of food and scattered the 
tempting crumbs in full view of the hungry one. 
Tommy could resist no longer, and never having 
been afraid of a woman, he flopped awkwardly down 
from the tree and commenced to peck greedily at 
the food; but he was destined to disappointment; 
no sooner did the housewife discover him than she 
raised an outcry. 

“ The saucy wretch ! ” she cried. “ A robin as well 
as the sparrows to steal food from my hens ! Away 
with you, you little thief ! ” and she flung a stone at 
Tommy. 

It hit one of his feet and crushed three of his 
toes, and he flew away, screaming with pain, and 
hungry as ever; and now he could only use one foot 
to clutch at the branches, and, being an exceed- 
ingly awkward bird, he kept flopping over on one 
side and could scarcely hold on to a twig ; and, dear 
me, how hungry he was, and how thirsty! He had 
been driven away from the water by a terrific cat, he 
had been unable to digest a bug, and he had been 
stoned by a heartless woman. Tommy thought it 
heartless now for others to do what he had done 
himself with such glee. He sat, in a lop-sided, 
hopeless way, on a friendly branch, hungry, thirsty 


TOMMY THE BAD 


139 


and listless, and would doubtless have rested a while 
if he had not been startled by a terrific whir of 
wings, and looked up to see a hawk making straight 
for him, with evil intent. The poor little bully and 
braggart of old days screamed with terror and flew 
— as he had certainly never flown before — with the 
breath of the hawk ruffling his tail, so close and 
keen was the chase. Tommy’s heart thumped hard 
against his bosom, his breath came short, and he 
almost gave up, when an arrow darted past him, 
aimed at the hawk ; and though it missed, it alarmed 
his pursuer and gave Tommy time to fly under the 
eaves of a barn and cling there, half dead with 
terror. What a wretched thing it was to be a bird, 
after all ! Tommy hung there a long time ; indeed, 
until his one claw could cling no longer, and then 
he flopped hopelessly down to the ground, intend- 
ing to rest; but there is no rest for the wicked. 
Tommy the Bad had scarely landed in the grass 
before he saw his own likeness, in the shape of an 
active boy, armed with a sling and a bag of 
stones, who saw him appear, with a hideous grin, and 
immediately flung a stone. Tommy, exhausted and 
broken hearted, rose in the air and began to fly for 
his life ; but, alas ! that boy could fling a stone as well 


140 TOMMY THE BAD 

as he could himself, and Tommy was fairly hit in the 
breast. Stunned and wild, he flew on, trying to 
reach a tree, but he was not destined to escape, and 
another stone struck his left wing, breaking it; and 
dizzy, and smarting, and bleeding, Tommy fell, his 
ears deafened by the jeers and cries of that terrible 
monster of a boy. Down, down, fell Tommy — 
and thump ! 

He found himself in the middle of that field of 
grass and daisies, where he had found the fateful 
oak in the morning. Now the sun was setting 
and Tommy was a boy again. He would, perhaps, 
have thought that he had been dreaming — that he 
had had a fearful nightmare; but just as this came 
into his mind, he saw some little green figures 
darting about in the grass, and he heard a squeaky 
chorus, off in the distance. 

“ How do you like being a bird, Master Tommy?” 
it said. 

“ I will never, never hurt one again ! ” he replied, 
with a sob. “ I solemnly promise you that, and oh, 
I ’m so sorry that I was ever so cruel ! ” 

“ Ha, ha!” they replied ; “ so we’ve found a way. 
Well, keep your word, be kind to birds, and dogs, 
and cats, and horses, and everything small and 


TOMMY THE BAD 


141 

weak, and all will be right, — but, if you break it 
again, you ’ll be a bird for life ! ” 

You may be sure that he never broke it; indeed, 
so complete was his reform, that, after that eventful 
day, he was known as Tommy the Good. 





GOODY GREEN EYE AND HER 

ASS 





OODY GREENEYE was an old 
woman in the old, old times, and 
she dwelt not very far from the old 
English town of Exeter. She was 
called Goody Greeneye, though she 
at all, but in fact a very bad and 
malicious crone who lived all by herself in a little 
hut on the edge of a forest ; and no one who was 
wise ever went near that house willingly, either by 
day or night, for the people for miles around were 
afraid of her and believed her to be a very wicked 
and powerful witch. Indeed, it was whispered that 
troops of naughty elves obeyed her lightest word, 
and that at dusk every evening they could be seen 
flocking all around her hut, creeping over the roof 
which was of thatched straw, or in at the unglazed 
window, or under the rickety old door; and some- 
times at night flames shot out of the solitary 
*45 



IO 



146 GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 

chimney and filled the air with little fiery imps, 
sent up by Goody Greeneye’s chants and charms. 
Indeed, it was commonly reported that the forest, 
on the edge of which stood her hut, was haunted, 
not only by pixies, and derricks, and wishhounds, 
but also by terrible old women riding on broom- 
sticks, who came from all parts of England and 
Wales, and even from Scotland and Ireland, to 
dance on the moor before Goody Greeneye’s door. 
So it is not hard to imagine how afraid of her the 
good folk in the neighborhood were, and how they 
quaked when she threatened and scolded at them, 
which she did very often ; for she had a bad temper, 
and it was probably made much worse by the life 
she led, and the dislike of her neighbors. Her 
house itself was certainly a poor little place ; a hut 
with walls of clay and a roof of straw, with one 
chimney and one window that had neither a sash 
nor a pane of glass ; and this hut had no floor but 
the earth, and no upper story, but just an attic at 
one end under the thatch of straw, and no stairs, 
but a post with notches cut for the feet. This 
was the only ladder she had to reach the corner 
under the roof where lay her straw bed; for a mat- 
tress or a couch she had not, nor did many of the 


GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 


147 


other peasants have them, for in those times there 
was poverty among the lower classes that we scarcely 
hear of now, at least, in our part of the world. Yet 
Goody Greeneye was no poorer than her neighbors, 
and many believed that she was much richer. She 
had quite a flock of hens, and she raised a few 
vegetables and herbs, and every market-day in 
Exeter, set out for town, clad in her rocket, a kind 
of large mantle of serge, or linsey-woolsey, with a 
deep fringe at the lower end, worn by the country 
women, and always red in winter and white in sum- 
mer : West Country Rockets, they called them ; 
certainly not much like the thing that we call a 
rocket now. Goody Greeneye, bundled up in this 
red rocket, would sally forth with her basket of 
eggs and her bunch of vegetables, and taking her 
seat in the market-place, she always succeeded in 
selling her stock, and always went home with the 
merry jingle of coins in her pocket ; and though 
robbers were as thick on those moors as peas in a 
pod, no one ever ventured to rob the terrible witch. 
So it was that her pot often boiled when her neigh- 
bor’s was empty, and she lacked neither fire nor 
food when others were starving and freezing; but 
for all that she had much to torment her. She was 


148 GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 

so well hated, and did so many mean and spiteful 
things, that the peasants never did her a kindness, 
and the children either ran from her or mocked 
her; no one had a pleasant word for her, and I am 
afraid she did not deserve one. 

Now, very near Goody Greeneye there lived an 
honest farmer with a troop of noisy, merry, healthy 
children, six boys and six girls; these youngsters 
knew the old witch well, and hated and feared her 
quite as much as the other people did, and though 
they were generally wise enough and agile enough 
to keep out of her reach, I am afraid they took a 
delight in teasing her, and making fun of her long 
nose, and of her chin which nearly met it. Of 
all the boys and girls, the eldest, Osmund, was 
the greatest tease, and being a hardy, daring boy 
he went farther and did more to vex Goody Green- 
eye than any of the others, and perhaps, therefore, 
he really deserved some of the punishment he got, 
though not quite all of it, I am sure ; for it really 
was a very horrible one, as you shall hear. 

There was an old gnarled apple tree growing in 
the corner of the witch’s garden plot, and its 
branches hung temptingly low over the hedge; and 
when the fruit was ripening she kept a sharp eye 


GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 


149 


on it to save it from the young marauders of the 
neighborhood, who, in their greed for a ripe apple 
suddenly forgot their terror of the old hag. Indeed, 
these apples, for some mysterious reason, were the 
largest and fairest in the county, and their red 
cheeks were quite too inviting to be resisted. No 
one knew why such apples hung on such a miserable 
old tree, and the peasants always declared that they 
were the work of the goody’s enchantment. How 
that may be, I know not; but certain it is that they 
were far too good to escape Master Osmund, and 
though he knew well enough that it was wrong to 
steal at all, and both wrong and mean to steal an 
old woman’s fruit, yet he persisted in coming after 
those apples. The others, his brothers and sisters, 
were a little afraid, when the pinch came, to climb 
the tree, lest Goody Greeneye should catch them 
aloft and have them at her mercy; but Osmund was 
never afraid, and he was up in that tree again and 
again, filling his pockets and tossing the fruit to the 
timid ones on the farther side of the hedge ; and try 
as she would, the old woman never could catch him. 
Before she could hobble down to the tree he was 
over the hedge at a bound, shrieking defiance back 
at her, and laughing her threats to scorn. He 


150 GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 

deserved to be caught for stealing the apples, so we 
can hardly blame the old woman for her screams of 
rage, when she found herself robbed and mocked 
into the bargain. But, after all, she never lost very 
many apples, for she was keen enough to gather 
them herself, and the mischievous tricks of a boy 
were hardly enough to make her vow vengeance ; 
but she did, and very cunning she was, too, about 
her way of getting it. Quite unexpectedly she 
changed her conduct toward the children, and espe- 
cially toward Osmund, whom she now began to treat 
with great kindness. She smiled at him out of the 
window, and even laughed when she saw him trying 
to get the last apple that she had left to ripen on 
the tree. So kind did she become that they all 
began to be ashamed of their treatment of her and 
left off teasing her, and one by one ran off to play 
in other quarters, so that it seemed as if she had 
won by a little kindness the peace that she had 
never been able to get by threats or angry words. 
Matters went so smoothly that Osmund was heartily 
mortified at his own conduct, and now when he 
passed, he spoke to the dame as civilly as he could, 
although he still avoided her as a witch. Besides, 
he was growing to be a big boy, too big for such 


GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 1 51 

tricks and trifles, and he was so tall, and straight, 
and strong, and handsome, that his parents were 
very proud of him, and all the boys in the neighbor- 
hood looked up to him as quite the champion of the 
place. But neither his size nor his strength saved 
him, for all the while old Goody Greeneye was 
planning and planning her revenge ; and one fair 
morning her opportunity came, and she hailed it 
with delight. 

It chanced that the old crone was sitting at the 
threshold of her miserable hut, trying, no doubt, to 
draw some of the aches and pains of old age out of 
her limbs in the warm sunshine of the beautiful 
summer day. But so dark and forbidding was her 
shrivelled face, with its hooked nose and fierce little 
eyes, that the sun seemed to forget to shine on her; 
and while every other object near was bright with 
noonday warmth, she looked dark, and shrunken, 
and ugly, and did not seem to get a bit of it. She 
had a beehive at her door and the bees were hum- 
ming happily, and her hens were clucking not two 
yards from her feet, while in her hands was a little 
basket full of new-laid eggs; but she looked as 
brown and shrivelled as any old dried apple that 
had lain puckering on the shelf for a twelvemonth. 


152 GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 

But, dear me, how she grinned, and smirked, and 
tried to look kind when she saw Osmund coming 
down the path by her gate. A handsome young 
fellow enough and one that might well please an 
old woman’s eye, and he looked at her pleasantly, 
for he was in a very good humor, and he smiled 
and lifted his cap. 

“ Good day to you, Goody Greeneye, ” he said, 
with never a thought of the hate she bore him, for 
he had forgotten all about those days of apple 
stealing and other tricks. 

“ A fair day to you, Master Osmund, and good 
luck, too,” purred the wretched old hag. “ ’T is long 
since you ’ve passed this way, and the sight of a 
fine young fellow like you is good for old eyes. 
See here what a fine basket of eggs I have,” she 
added, holding them out ; “ there are no such hens 
as mine — as I think you know!” and she gave 
him a meaning look, and laughed and chuckled to 
herself. 

Osmund flushed red, for he knew well enough 
that he had stolen more than one egg out of those 
nests, just to torment Goody Greeneye. 

“ I was a bad boy, madam, ” he said, shamefaced. 

“ Tut, tut ! ” cackled the old witch, “ never mind 


GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 


153 


that; I bore you no ill will for a boy's naughty 
tricks ! Here, Master Osmund, take this egg and 
eat it at once, to let me see that you bear me no 
malice, either. Here ’s the very finest egg in Yny 
basket, and I know you are hungry after the day in 
the fields.” 

“ Indeed, I am, ” said Osmund, foolish enough to 
be pleased at her flattery and her coaxing tone; 
“but really I am on my way home to dinner, and I 
won’t rob you of another egg, Goody Greeneye.” 

He said this as an excuse, for he really did not 
care to eat food given him by a witch, even though 
he had stolen apples from her tree ; but the old 
woman was far too cunning to let him escape. 

“ Nay, ” she said, “ you must take the egg or I ’ll 
never forgive you, my master ; and see what a fine 
white egg it is — nearly as big as a goose egg.” 

Ashamed to refuse again Osmund took the egg 
and slipped it into his pocket, but at this the old 
hag screamed and protested. 

“ No, no ! ” she cried, “ eat it now, Osmund. Did I 
not save the best on purpose ? and if you suck a raw 
egg it will make you as strong as a giant. Eat it, 
friend, for my hens lay famous eggs, and every one 
is better and wiser for eating them.” 


154 GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 

Strange to say, Osmund had hardly got the egg 
into his pocket before he was possessed with a wild 
desire to eat it; for you see the egg was a very 
curious egg, indeed, and therefore it took but little 
of Goody Greeneye’s urging to make him take it 
out again. Breaking the shell at one end he ate 
the contents, while the old woman watched him 
with such a wicked grin of delight that, if the foolish 
youth had looked at her, he would have taken 
warning and stopped before it was too late. But 
the egg was so delicate and so very fresh and nice 
that Osmund made short work of it, and throwing 
away the empty shell, he thanked Goody Greeneye 
for her kind thought of him, and, being in some- 
thing of a hurry, he bade her a kind good day and 
setoff again at a round pace thinking that, after all, 
she was very much belied and was a very good old 
woman. Oh, if he could only have seen the old 
wretch dancing with joy on her doorstep, and shak- 
ing her fists at him ! But even then he would never 
have dreamed of the dreadful thing he had done. 
He thrust his hands into his pockets, and whistling 
a tune, he started off across the moor toward his 
home, where dinner was spread for all his brothers 
and sisters and for himself, and he whistled as 


GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 


155 


sweetly as any robin — he had always been famous 
for whistling — and he was already almost out of 
sight of Goody Greeneye’s hut and then — and 
then — 

All at once, he began to have the most curious 
feelings. His head felt twice its natural size, and 
his ears began to sprout up in the air, like growing 
plants, and he grew so dizzy that he could not stand 
upright, but toppled over on all fours. He had 
worn a new doublet that morning, quite a fine 
affair, and now it seemed to fall away, and instead, 
he was covered with a rough, shaggy coat of hair ; 
and a long leathery tail, with a tassel on the end 
of it, began to switch his legs, and his hands and 
his feet turned into hoofs. “ Horror of horrors ! ” 
he thought, “ what has come over me ? ” and he 
tried to scream for help, but he made the most 
shocking noise, in fact, he brayed — for, in the 
twinkling of an eye, the tall, strong, handsome 
Osmund had been turned into an ass ! Then, 
just in the midst of his horror and amazement, he 
heard a mocking laugh, and Goody Greeneye sud- 
denly appeared beside him, dancing with joy. 

“ Oh, ho ! ” she cried gleefully, “ oh, ho, my fine 
ass ! Here is just what I ’ve needed so long, an ass 


156 GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 

to take me to the Exeter market. What are you 
braying so loud for, Master Ass? Do you want 
some thistles, my beauty ? ” 

Poor Osmund ! He understood her false kindness 
now! The wretched old hag had given him an 
enchanted egg, and here he was a helpless ass, quite 
at her mercy. Blind with rage, he bellowed away 
at the top of his lungs, and planting his forefeet, 
let fly his hind legs in a fruitless effort to kick his 
enemy; but Goody Greeneye danced away, as nimble 
as only a witch can be, and laughed and laughed — 
until she had to hold her sides — at his rage and his 
efforts to kick her to pieces. 

“ Oh, dear ! Oh, dear ! ” she cackled, wiping the 
tears of laughter from her eyes ; “ if you could only 
see how awkward you are! A real, old-fashioned 
ass would have kicked me sky high in the time you 
have been raising nothing but dust. Chut ! Master 
Ass, you ’re only fit to take me on your back,” and 
with this she gave a leap — as lightly as a child of 
ten — and landed on Osmund’s back. 

You can imagine his fury at finding the horrid 
old wretch seated on his back, and he straightway 
set about getting her off, in the way he had seen 
real horses and asses try to unseat their riders: he 


GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 1 5 7 

planted his forefeet harder than ever, and he ducked 
down his head and flung his hind legs so high 
he nearly turned a somersault ; but all to no pur- 
pose. That wretched old goody held on firmly by 
one of his long ears, and began to beat him soundly 
with a long, thorny branch that she had plucked 
from a bramble-bush near by. She beat him so 
hard and the thorns pricked him so sharply, that he 
could endure it no longer, and he started off at a 
run as fast as he could, making straight for his 
home, for there surely, he thought, he would get 
help. But though he ran as never an ass ran be- 
fore, and jumped ditches and cleared stone walls, 
he could not unseat that dreadful old witch ; she 
sat as firm as a rock, jeering and laughing, her 
shrill cackling nearly driving him mad. And as he 
neared his home, his younger brothers and sisters 
came running toward him, and Osmund thought 
they had seen his trouble and were coming to help, 
never dreaming that they would not know him 
until he heard them speaking to the witch. 

“ O Goody Greeneye,” the first one cried, “ why 
do you ride so fast? ” 

“ And where is our brother? ” demanded the sec- 
ond. “ Have you seen Osmund ? ” 


158 GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 

“ What a frightful, old, skinny ass, Goody ! ” ex- 
claimed the third. 

“A lean ass will run the faster to market, my 
dears,” retorted Goody Greeneye, chuckling wickedly. 

And at this Osmund brayed loudly, trying — oh, 
so hard, hard as we try in nightmare — to talk and 
tell his brothers and sisters of his fearful plight; but 
they only laughed at the noise, thrusting their 
fingers into their ears. 

“ Where is Osmund ? ” again demanded one of 
them. “ He is late, so late to dinner. Hast seen 
him, Goody Greeneye ? ” 

“ Osmund is an ass ! ” declared the goody, more 
truthfully than they knew. 

“The horrid old thing! ’’cried Osmund’s brothers 
and sisters, “ to speak so of our big, handsome 
brother. Away with you, you witch ; away with 
that bag of bones you call an ass ! ” and they drove 
Osmund back from his own gate with sticks and 
stones, screaming and shouting in their anger, while 
Goody Greeneye, enjoying the whole scene as a 
huge joke, beat Osmund herself and turned his head 
toward her own hut. 

“ Trot ! ” she said, fiercely ; “ trot ! You see what 
a welcome a man gets in his own home when he 


GOODY GREEN EYE AND HER ASS 1 59 

comes back in a poor shape. Ah, ha! Master Os- 
mund; you’re my ass now, and mine you shall be. 
Trot, trot, trot ! ” 

And trot he did, cut to the heart by the treat- 
ment of his own family, and quite unable to resist 
the force of the witch’s enchantment. He started 
off over the moor with Goody Greeneye perched 
on his back, and in less than no time he found 
himself in her garden, tied to that same old 
gnarled apple tree, with a handful of thistles for his 
dinner! 

Poor Osmund ! He was punished now for the 
apples he had stolen. There he stood under that 
old tree with a stout bit of rope around his thin 
neck, and the rope was just loose enough to permit 
him to chew his thistles ; and I can tell you that 
thistles were anything but filling, and Osmund 
had the sharp appetite of a hungry, healthy boy. 
He tried hard to slip his head out of the noose, or 
to break the cord that bound him ; but all to no 
purpose. Goody Greeneye knew very well how to 
make a halter, and she was far too cunning to use 
anything but the stoutest and newest rope, so all 
Osmund’s efforts only ended in nearly choking 
himself; and to stand there and kick and bray was 


160 GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 

not only tiresome, but it brought the old hag to 
her door to mock and laugh. So there he had to 
stand, the meanest, leanest-looking ass in England, 
and though the sun still shone and the bees 
hummed, Osmund thought the world was the black- 
est place in creation, and he hated the sight of the 
goody’s hens, for he could think of nothing but that 
horrid egg; so, when one came near him, he kicked 
at it viciously. But he soon had cause to repent of 
even that, for, as you may have suspected, even 
Goody Greeneye’s hens were quite different from 
others, and the moment he kicked at one she flew 
up on his back and began to scream and peck him 
so sharply that he bellowed with rage, and then the 
old witch ran out with her broomstick and fell to 
beating him over the head. 

“ Be still, you noisy ass ! ” she squealed, in a rage. 
“ What ! would you kick my hens ? I ’ll teach you 
a lesson, Master Ass,” and she whacked him so 
hard that poor Osmund saw stars, and was glad 
enough to be still when she and her hens departed 
toward the house, cackling and screaming in so 
much the same manner that he began to think that 
the witch must be a mixture of hen herself. 

He understood now how the poor, dumb animals 


GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 161 

had to suffer without redress, and he began to feel 
heartily sorry for every unkind word he had ever 
spoken to a horse, or a dog, or any other animal, 
and felt sure that he was smarting himself now 
for the thoughtless blows he had struck. It is 
neither brave, nor wise, nor kind to abuse dumb 
brutes, and I have no doubt that when we do, we 
get it all back at some time or another, though we 
may be so stupid that we do not know why we are 
punished. Osmund vowed in his heart that he 
would never be unkind to any dumb thing again, 
and then he tried to eat his thistles, but, dear me, 
they nearly choked him ; indeed, they stuck hard 
and fast in his throat, and Goody Greeneye thought 
it very saving to feed him on them, for while they 
stayed in his throat he could not possibly eat any- 
thing else. You see, she was a horrid, mean, cold- 
blooded old monster of a witch, quite the worst I 
ever heard of. This is a really true story, as you 
must know, for the witch was truly tried for turning 
a man into an ass, and tried in an English court of 
law, so, of course, it must be every bit true. 

Well, poor Osmund stayed all night under that 
tree, with the dew falling on his shaggy brown 
hide, and I can tell you he was cold and stiff the 

ii 


1 62 GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 

next morning and full of thistles, when old Goody 
Greeneye came out, clad in her rocket, and began 
to pack two baskets with eggs and vegetables, which 
she finally swung across his back; and then, in spite 
of his braying and kicking, she mounted behind her 
baskets and set off for Exeter, beating her ass all the 
way and laughingat his efforts to run away with her 
or to throw her into a ditch. He tried very hard 
indeed to get rid of her, cutting all sorts of capers, 
plunging, and rearing, and kicking, until they drew 
near the town, and then poor Osmund lost his 
spirit, for he heard people laughing at him and 
calling him “a kicking scarecrow,” and “a bag of 
bones,” and “ a skeleton ass,” and he did not like to 
be made a jest of when he was in such bitter trouble; 
so he stopped kicking and prancing, and walked 
soberly along, with a hanging head, through the 
streets of Exeter to the market-place, where he found 
a great crowd buying and selling, and singing and 
fighting ; for market day, in those times, was not 
much like market day now. It was almost like 
going to a circus ; there was a Merry Andrew, and 
a dancing bear, and gypsies telling fortunes; and 
there were live sheep and cattle to sell, as well as 
poultry and eggs, but very few vegetables, hardly 


GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 


163 

any of those we have every day in the year, for 
people did not know anything then about raising 
the things that are raised so easily now. Let- 
tuce and salads of all sorts were luxuries that 

♦ 

came only from Holland, for the Dutch were the 
market gardeners of the world. There were some 
turnips, potatoes, and oats, and not much else, except 
the bright-hued serges for which Exeter was famous, 
and ribbons and finery that the country girls came 
to town to buy. But it was a gay scene : there was 
ballad singing, and bargaining, and selling, and no 
one had enjoyed market day more than Osmund ; 
but now he stood there, forlorn enough, tied to a 
post, while Goody Greeneye sold her eggs and her 
herbs, and laughed and scolded with her gossips, and 
all the time her wretched-looking ass was the butt of 
every jest in that quarter of the market. 

“ Where did you get that beautiful beast, Goody ?” 
laughed an honest farmer, eying Osmund with scorn. 

“ It ’s the goody’s scarecrow come to life,” ex- 
plained a stout market woman, cackling with 
laughter. 

“ What does he eat ? sawdust or nails, Goody 
Greeneye ? ” cried another bystander, joining in the 
jest. 


1 64 GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 

But the old woman made no reply, she only 
grinned and leered at the ass in a knowing way. 

“ Hoot, ’t is an ass made out of one of the witch’s 
broomsticks,” cried one observer, giving Osmund a 
sharp poke with her staff. 

This was too much ; Osmund could not endure it ; 
and he let fly his heels, upsetting a basket of eggs 
and smashing them all over the last speaker, an old 
woman, who flew into a fury and began to beat him 
and scream. And then Goody Greeneye interfered, 
for though she liked nothing better than beating 
Osmund herself, she hated this particular old woman: 
she went at her, and in less than a minute they were 
fighting each other over Osmund’s back, hitting 
each other with sticks and stones, but more often 
hitting him, while the other people stood by and 
laughed and applauded. This went on until 
Goody Greeneye really began to beat the other old 
hag black and blue, and then there was a cry for the 
watch — that was what they called a policeman 
then — and the witch, afraid of being punished for 
her ill temper, leaped on Osmund’s back and made 
him run out of town at the top of his speed. A 
rabble of men, and women, and children, and dogs 
ran shrieking, and screaming, and barking behind, 


GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 165 

calling Goody Greeneye “ a witch ! ” and a great 
many other bad names, while poor Osmund got hit 
with more than one stone in their mad flight; he 
reached the old hut at last, sober, and weary, and 
frightened almost to death. If this was market day 
for an ass, what in the world would become of him ? 
Besides, the goody was in a frightful humor and 
tied him up so tight to the apple tree that she nearly 
choked him, and went to her own supper without 
giving him even a drop of water. Poor Osmund, 
how wretched he was ! and worse than all, he heard 
his brothers and sisters go by clamoring for him, and 
hunting everywhere for him, and never once think- 
ing of Goody Greeneye’s ass. And no help came 
— no, not a bit; he lived so for a long time, for it 
takes a long time to starve to death, and the witch 
gave him just enough to keep the life in him ; it 
was only when she brought him into the hut, as she 
sometimes did at night, that he got any chance of 
revenge. You must know that the peasants often 
kept their animals in the same hut with themselves, 
and once when Goody Greeneye brought Osmund 
in and tied him, as she thought, tightly enough, he 
managed to reach up and snatch her straw bed from 
the attic floor and eat it, although she beat him and 


i66 


GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 


screamed with rage. But after all, he could not 
punish her and he had to listen to her threats and 
her taunts. 

“ Ha, ha ! ” she would say ; “ how do you like 
being an ass, my fine gentleman ? Mock old 
Goody Greeneye now, if you can — oh, ho!” 

And then she would beat him with brambles until 
he bled. It was almost too much to bear, but 
Osmund had to bear it, until one market day some- 
thing happened that made a great change for the 
poor lean ass. 

Osmund had been mourned for lost by his family 
for twelve months and more, when it chanced that 
one fine day Goody Greeneye set out for market in a 
very good humor. She had on a fine new red rocket 
and carried a fine basket of new-laid eggs, and away 
she rode in high glee, though Osmund was so thin 
by this time that his bones were nearly through his 
skin. In fact, he cut such a miserable figure that 
he was an object of scorn and pity wherever he 
appeared ; as soon as he got into the streets of 
Exeter, all the hard-hearted boys and girls began to 
laugh and make game of Goody Greeneye’s ass, so 
that by the time he reached the market-place there 
was a whole string of children behind him, scream- 


GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 167 

in g, and laughing, and pointing their fingers, instead 
of being sorry for the poor lean animal. But you 
can imagine that Osmund and Goody Greeneye were 
a strange-looking pair; she in her red rocket, with a 
high, steeple-crowned hat, and a big yellow starched 
ruff about her neck, and a short, stuffed petticoat 
that showed her great feet, and above all, her 
wrinkled, hateful, old face with the nose and chin 
nearly meeting. In fact, when she was angry it 
seemed as if it would need a crowbar to pry the two 
apart, and her eyes were as sharp as gimlets and as 
green as green could be; yet she rode with an air, 
sitting quite jauntily, perched on the back of the 
worst-looking ass you ever dreamed of. His poor 
long legs were knock-kneed and shambled along 
under a miserable, bony body, with a coat of shaggy 
brown fur so rough that it looked motheaten, and 
his long neck stuck straight out in front of him, with 
a big bony head on it, and his ears were at least 
half a foot longer than the ears of any other ass in 
the world, while his tail was a mean, black leather 
string, with a tassel on the end. When Goody 
Greeneye made him into an ass she almost forgot 
about the tail ; it was an after thought and it looked 
like one, and had the feeblest kind of a whisk to it. 


1 68 GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 

So, after all, it was certainly a strange sight, and it 
was scarcely a wonder that the children made such 
a fuss about it. Osmund himself was getting quite 
used to the ridicule, and walked along without any 
spirit, and stood in the same forlorn way in the 
market-place. But on this particular day the peo- 
ple soon had something else to do besides staring 
at him, for presently there was a great stir and 
racket, and the sound of galloping horses, and every 
one ran to see what was coming. And lo and be- 
hold, down a street that led to the market-place 
came a wonderful coach and four, with outriders 
and attendants on horseback, and the greatest jing- 
ling of chains and rumbling of wheels, and a cry 
went up : “ The Princess — the Princess Beautiful ! ” 
and even poor Osmund turned to gaze. 

On the procession came : first were six gay es- 
quires, mounted on fine black horses, and dressed 
in blue and gold, with shining helmets on their 
heads and great swords at their sides; then came 
six more on bay horses, all dressed in green and 
silver, with helmets and swords ; and then followed 
the great coach, a low, wide-topped coach, painted 
and gilded, with great glass windows, and it was 
drawn by four milk-white horses, with blue and 


GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 1 69 

white plumes nodding on their heads, and on each 
horse was a rider, all dressed in silver and 
white, while in the coach sat the most beautiful 
princess in the world, — oh, yes, quite the most beau- 
tiful, — and she was wonderfully robed in white and 
rose color, and looked, Osmund thought, like a 
beautiful rose herself; and behind the coach were 
six more attendants in red and gold, mounted on 
beautiful gray horses. They all came on through 
the market-place, glittering in the sunshine, and 
the crowd fell back to make room for the Princess 
Beautiful, and bowed and applauded as crowds al- 
ways do when they see any one very rich and very 
powerful. A whole lot of people are a great deal 
more foolish than just one, for they have the folly 
of all the crowd rolled up together, until it is 
the greatest lot of folly that can be put in one 
place ; for it is very foolish to admire and praise 
any one for being merely beautiful and rich, and 
not because he is truly wise and good and great. 
However, this princess was good, as you shall hear, 
so she deserved the praise and admiration she re- 
ceived wherever she went. Now, as luck would 
have it, the peasants about Osmund were all so 
anxious to see this great personage that they began 


170 


GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 


to beat the poor ass from side to side, making him 
turn this way and that to make room, first on one 
side and then the other, and poor Osmunds 
sides were so sore that he could not help braying 
with pain. The princess heard it and turned her 
head in his direction ; and as soon as she saw the 
wretched creature her heart was filled with compas- 
sion, and she lifted her hand, and in an instant the 
outriders shouted, the attendants galloped up, and 
the whole procession stood still, while the princess 
spoke in the sweetest of sweet voices. 

t( Pray tell me,” she said, “ whose ass is that? ” 

At this, Goody Greeneye came curtseying and 
smirking through the crowd, and tried to look sweet 
at the beautiful princess. 

“ Mine, please, your Highness,” she cackled, bow- 
ing low. “ I ’m only a poor old woman, and I can’t 
keep a better beast.” 

“ She ’s an old witch ! ” screamed some one in the 
crowd. 

The princess shuddered, and tossed a purse into 
the old hag’s hands. 

“ I will buy your ass, Goody,” she said, and signed 
to one of her attendants to take Osmund by the 
halter and lead him away. 


GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 1 71 

You may be sure that the fine gentleman was in 
no haste to do this, for all the others began to smile 
at the figure he cut, leading the skinny old ass, with 
his wretched old halter of rope. But the princess 
frowned at their mirth, and they dared not object to 
her wishes, so on they went, in a fine cavalcade, 
with Osmund struggling along in the rear, and trying 
so hard to keep up that his wisp of a tail stood out 
straight; and the crowd behind laughed and squealed 
at the sight, while the fine gentleman who was lead- 
ins: the ass was in such a ras:e at the laughter he 
caused that he jerked the poor fellow along at a rate 
that nearly pulled Osmund’s head off his lean neck. 
Away and away they trotted, and galloped, and ran, 
over the moors, up hill and down dale, until at 
last, as the sun was setting, they came in sight of 
a great castle of gray stone, perched on a hill that 
overlooked the blue sea, and guarded on that side 
by fierce, steep rocks, so high and so straight up 
that only a wild bird could ascend them, while at 
the foot leaped the sea, roaring and tossing its mane 
of foam like a lion looking for his prey. All 
around the other three sides of the castle wall was 
a moat, wide, and deep, and full of water ; and the 
whole cavalcade, Osmund and all, went over a draw- 


172 


GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 


bridge into the castle yard ; and then the bridge 
was drawn up with chains, and a great iron 
gate was closed behind them, so no one else 
might come in to harm the Princess Beautiful, or 
carry her off. And now the poor ass was sent 
off to the stables, while the princess and all her fine 
attendants were going into the castle to supper. 

Osmund had hoped, when he got away from the 
horrid old witch, that he would find peace and 
comfort at last, even though he was an ass ; but, 
dear me, it was out of the frying-pan into the fire. 
You see, the kind and beautiful princess could not 
see what all her servants were doing ; and they 
were not as kind as she was ; and her grooms and 
stable-boys at first roared with laughter at Osmund, 
and then were so angry to have this horrid, ugly 
old ass brought there, that he got only kicks and 
blows, and hardly any more food than Goody 
Greeneye had given him. As the princess entirely 
forgot him, he was very soon turned out into a 
field near the castle, and left to get food as he 
could. He stayed there, too, without any shelter 
either from the hot sun or the wind and rain, day 
in and day out, and no one remembered him any 
more, even to beat him. Poor Osmund ! I think his 


GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 173 

heart broke then, and, oh, how often he wished that 
he had never stolen Goody Greeneye’s apples or 
mocked her; and he was very near dying of hunger 
and sorrow, when one day, while searching for Jood 
in this barren pasturage, he saw a new, fresh little 
green plant ; and while he was smelling of it, 
rather suspicious lest it were Goody Greeneye’s en- 
chantment in a new form, — you see he had grown 
much wiser, — well, while he was sniffing at it, he 
heard a wee voice come from it. 

“ Eat me! ” it said. 

Osmund jumped as if a pin had been stuck in 
him. 

“Oh, no,” he thought; “not I, — ’t is Goody 
Greeneye’s egg in another shape;” but the little 
voice pleaded hard. 

“ Eat me,” it said, “ and your tongue will be 
untied, and you can tell your sorrows.” 

But Osmund could not be quite persuaded, and 
he was standing there looking at the plant, when lo 
and behold, there came the princess herself and a 
couple of damsels, her ladies-in-waiting, behind her. 
She tripped along as fair and sweet as the morning, 
and Osmund looked at her mournfully, wishing he 
could tell her all, and the tears ran down his face 


174 GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 

and fell in such torrents, — he was broken hearted, 
you see, — that there was very soon a little rivulet 
flowing through the field ; and when the princess 
came to it she gave a cry of surprise. 

“Where in the world did this stream come 
from?” she asked. And then, looking about, she 
saw the poor ass weeping bucketfuls of tears at 
the end of the field. In an instant, she saw how 
badly her servants had treated the poor animal, and 
she stamped her foot on the ground with anger. 

“ What means this ? ” she cried ; “ did I not 
order that this ass should be fed and groomed as 
my own ? ” 

“Yes, indeed, your Highness!” replied the two 
maids, all of a tremble, for the princess could be 
very stern when she had just cause for anger. 

“ Some one has done wrong,” continued her High- 
ness, and she walked along the edge of the brook 
made by Osmund’s tears until she came up to him. 
“ My poor, poor fellow,” she said very kindly, “ you 
are surely starving to death ! ” 

“ Oh, if I could only tell her the truth !” thought 
Osmund, and then he heard again the wee voice 
pleading so hard, “ Eat me,” and what do you 
think Osmund did ? 


GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 


175 


Why, he ate that green plant, and, wonder of 
wonders ! he found he could speak ; and with the 
tears still streaming — the rivulet was nearly a 
lake now — he began to tell the princess who he 
was. At first, she was very much startled at hear- 
ing an ass begin to talk, but she was a princess, 
and she would not let any one think her afraid. 
Her ladies, however, ran screaming away in such 
haste that one of them fell into the lake made by 
Osmund’s tears, and was dragged out with great 
difficulty by some servants who heard her cries. 

Meanwhile, the Princess Beautiful was listening 
to Osmund’s whole doleful story, and very indignant 
she was. 

“ My poor fellow,” she cried ; “you shall be righted. 
I ’ll send for that wicked woman, and make her 
turn you back into a man. I am a princess,” she 
added, proudly, “ and I will be obeyed ; and as for 
my servants, they shall be punished, too, for their 
treatment of you. Come , with me, sir, and you 
shall have a good dinner, while I send for the witch 
at once.” 

And off she went, stately and fair in her splendid 
gown, walking along with the poor, dirty, starved, 
old ass, and if they had dared, her people would 


176 GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 

have laughed at the sight, but they did not dare. 
I can tell you that there was an awful stir ; the 
grooms and the stable boys were well punished for 
their neglect, and lived on dried apples and hot 
water for a week and a day, to make amends for 
their treatment of Osmund. Meanwhile, eighteen 
of the attendants of the princess rode off, with 
very long swords, and helmets, and suits stuffed 
with straw to protect them, and they carried a long 
stout bag, into which they popped Goody Greeneye, 
and brought her back to the castle in less than no 
time. Then the princess had her brought before 
her with Osmund, and she repeated the whole story 
to all her people, and commanded Goody Greeneye 
to make Osmund a man again. 

At first, the old witch stoutly refused ; indeed, she 
declared that Osmund deserved to be an ass, and 
should stay one forever. 

“ What did he do but mock me and steal my 
apples?” she cackled, strutting about like a hen 
with ruffled plumage. “ He can stay as he is, for 
all I care, and eat thistles to the end of his days.” 

The princess gave her a terrible look, and signed 
to her attendants to bring a rope, which they sud- 
denly threw over Goody Greeneye’s head and, draw- 


GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 1 77 

ing the noose very tight around her neck, made 
her eyes almost pop out of her head. She set up 
an ear-splitting squeal, and could hardly be hushed 
long enough to listen to the princess. 

“You forget,” her highness remarked, “that my 
godfather is the King of the Derricks, and he 
will carry you down to the bottom of the sea, if you 
dare to insult me. Turn this ass back into a man, 
witch, or I ’ll have you hung over the edge of the 
cliff until my godfather takes you away.” 

At the sound of this dreadful threat Goody 
Greeneye’s knees shook under her, for she was 
fearfully afraid of the King of the Derricks, and 
she begged to be given only five minutes. 

“ Very well,” said the princess ; “ five minutes, but 
not one second more ! ” 

Goody Greeneye, with the rope still tight around 
her neck, fell on her knees and began to chant 
the strangest kind of a song, and she waved her 
hands and scratched the earth like a hen with her 
finger nails; and while she mumbled, and all the 
court of the princess looked on, the hide of the lean 
old ass began to fly off in fragments, and out of the 
litter of skin and hair rose Osmund, tall, and hand- 
some, and strong as ever, — even in his dress of a 


12 


178 GOODY GREENEYE AND HER ASS 

farmer’s son the finest-looking young man in the 
place. The princess was so pleased that she ordered 
her servants to release Goody Greeneye, and per- 
haps she intended to thank her, but — dear me ! — 
there was no time; the old hag had been too 
frightened to stay there a minute, and the instant 
the rope was off her neck — whiz! phiz! — there 
was a sound as if they had taken the cork out of a 
champagne bottle, and Goody Greeneye rose in the 
air, mounted on a broomstick, and flew off over the 
great cliff above the sea. The very last they saw 
of her was the flutter of her red rocket as she van- 
ished through the hazy air, evidently on her way to 
France, where I expect she did no end of mischief. 

Meanwhile, Osmund, quite restored to himself, was 
very thankful and very devoted to the princess, and his 
parents and all his eleven brothers and sisters came to 
rejoice and embrace him after having mourned for him 
as dead. And his dreadful experience had done him so 
much good, and taught him to be so kind, and merci- 
ful, and honest, that he grew to be a wonderfully wise 
and brave man, and I have heard reports, and I 
believe they are true, that he married the Princess 
Beautiful and lived ever after in the great Castle of 
Success that towered over the wide blue sea. 


LITTLE ELEANOR AND LITTLE 

PEPPER 


179 




ONG years ago there lived a dear 
little red-haired girl called Eleanor, 
and she had a faithful little brown 
dog, who loved her very, very 
dearly, and the little brown dog 
was called Pepper. 

It chanced one day that Eleanor’s mother took 
Pepper out with her, though he could not bear 
to leave his dear mistress, and when they returned, 
— the mother and the dog, — little Eleanor had 
vanished and there was only a gray goose quill in 
her cradle. Her mother ran up and down, weeping 
and wailing, and asking all the neighbors what had 
become of her child. But little Pepper asked no one, 
for he knew at once that the pixies had stolen her, 
and he set off all alone to look for her, trudging 
along over moors and over hills and through great, 
dark forests, weary, and footsore, and hungry still. 

181 





1 82 LITTLE ELEANOR AND LITTLE PEPPER 

He met a shepherd dog first and inquired of him 
whether he had seen little Eleanor pass that way. 
The shepherd dog did not know anything about 
her ; but, as he was a kind dog, he gave poor Pepper 
a bone from his own dinner and a drink of water 
out of his bowl. Next, Pepper asked the cow, but 
she said she did not know, but would chew her 
cud and consider; and then Pepper asked the 
horse, and the horse stopped to pick an oat out 
of his double teeth, and finally said that he had not 
seen her, but had heard a whizzing sound such as 
the pixies made when flying. So Pepper travelled 
on and inquired of the cat, but she was a witch-cat 
and put up her back and spit ; and of course, he had 
to go on and on, dear, faithful, little dog; and he 
asked the hen, but she cackled and ruffled her 
feathers and made a great fuss, driving her chicks 
away. And just then he saw a magpie, and he 
knew that it was very bad luck to meet one magpie 
by itself, so he at once spit over his right shoulder 
and repeated the good old Devonshire charm against 
a single magpie : 

“ ‘ Clean birds by sevens, 

Unclean by twos; 

The dove, in heavens, 

Is the one I choose.* ” 


LITTLE ELEANOR AND LITTLE PEPPER 183 

And feeling sure that this would keep away the 
magpie, Pepper trudged on and met a fine white 
pigeon, who looked so gentle and wise that Pepper 
stopped. 

“ Dear, dear pigeon,” he said, “ where have the 
pixies taken my mistress ? ” 

“ Kourre, Kourre ! ” cried the pigeon, strutting off 
in the sun. “ How should I know? I’m not her 
keeper! ” 

Then Pepper went farther and met a beautiful 
peacock. 

“ Tell me, dear sir, where is my mistress ?” cried 
the little dog sadly. 

“Ah, look at my tail,” replied the peacock; “is it 
not lovely ? ” and he spread it wide in the sun. 

“What do I care for your tail, you vain thing?” 
said Pepper angrily, as he went up to a little busy 
brown sparrow and asked him the old question. 

“Your mistress?” cried the sparrow. “Peep, 
peep ! I ’m too busy to know ; I Ve a family of six 
in the nest this minute, and their mother ’s gone to 
the club to play bridge-whist, and worms were never 
so scarce — peep, peep ! ” 

And he hurried off, in a whirl of care, while 
Pepper walked wearily on, still asking his question ; 


184 LITTLE ELEANOR AND LITTLE PEPPER 

but all those he met were either too busy or too care- 
less to tell him anything; so, after all, he had to go 
to the great gray goose. 

“ Where is dear little Eleanor, my mistress ? ” he 
asked, his eyes full of tears; and he had beautiful 
brown eyes. 

“ Ah, yes, I know,” said the goose, stretching his 
neck and yawning ; “the pixies have carried her off, 
because her hair is red, and they think it would do 
for a torch for their new cave.” 

“ Tell me only where to find her,” cried Pep- 
per, “ and I will go even to the end of the 
earth.” 

The goose scratched her head and tried to look 
wise, but the truth was, she did not really know, and 
so she hunched up her shoulders. 

“ Go to the King of the Derricks,” she said. 

And poor Pepper went trudging for miles and 
miles, half starved, and dusty, and tired, and at last 
he found the King of the Derricks in the Pirate 
Cave, and told him his errand. 

“ Oh, yes,” said his Majesty, “ pixies have her 
locked up in an oak tree, and they will not let her 
out unless the most faithful heart in the world goes 
after her.” 


LITTLE ELEANOR AND LITTLE PEPPER 185 

“And mine is the most faithful!” cried little 
Pepper truthfully. “ Pray, pray, Mr. King, tell me 
the way ! ” 

The king looked puzzled, but after a while he said, 

“ Well, you go straight ahead to the top of the 
hill, and then you turn to the left and go zigzag, and 
then to the right and go higglety-pigglety, and then 
straight ahead to the edge of the forest, and then to 
the left, and indirectly to the right, and there you 
are ! ” 

The poor little dog was very much puzzled, but 
being the most faithful and loving heart in the 
whole world he set out, and by following the king’s 
directions exactly, — I am sure I don’t know how 
he did, — he found the great oak and heard little 
Eleanor crying inside of it. And what do you 
think he did ? Why, for a whole year he gnawed 
away at the bark, and stopped only to eat a morsel 
a day to keep him alive, and meanwhile the squirrels 
fed little Eleanor on nuts, and brought her dew to 
drink out of acorn cups, and at the end of the 
year Pepper had gnawed a hole so big that she 
crept out and embraced him, crying for joy. As for 
the pixies, they were all so pleased at his devotion 
that they let her go home with him to her mother, 


1 86 LITTLE ELEANOR AND LITTLE PEPPER 


only keeping one lock • of her red hair to light a 
single torch in the cavern of the fairies. 

When she returned, her mother nearly died of joy, 
and her faithful little dog had more bark after that 
than anything else, because, you see, he had scarcely 
eaten anything but bark for a whole year. 

And this is a true story. 



PRINTED FOR A. C. McCLURG & CO. BY 
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, JOHN WILSON 
AND SON (INC.), CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 



































































































































































































































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